


A Trace of You

by Alice_Corvin (Zainir)



Series: When We Start Over [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Sex, Talon (Overwatch) - Freeform, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:40:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 64,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7441327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zainir/pseuds/Alice_Corvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tracer still holds on to some guilt from the past. There's someone she feels she could have saved but didn't. Can she make amends? Can she rescue someone who doesn't believe they need rescuing?</p><p>[ Comments are welcome if you enjoy, have a thought, or even just spot a mistake! And be sure to check out my other Overwatch stories if you like this. ]<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lena Oxton was early. At least, she thought she was early. Two others were leaving the warehouse alongside Winston. That was two more than she expected. One of them had bright white-blonde hair and piercing blues eyes. She looked out of place among the drab gray and rust red of the dockside warehouse. Though it had been a few years now, it was easy as ever to recognize Angela Ziegler in all her soft beauty. The other woman, though, seemed familiar but strange all at once.

Winston loaded some massive wooden crate into the truck and the two women got in and set off. They never saw Lena, which was fine by her. She was here for a reason and didn’t have the time to talk. She was pretty certain she didn’t. She slipped down the wharf, light on her feet as ever. She ignored the smell of old fish and the low sense of abandonment that rolled across the concrete like a fog.

“Winston! Love, good to see you,” she said, chipper and bright as she stopped in front of the armored gorilla.

He jumped in surprise, an impressive sight considering how huge he was. She giggled as he put a hand to his chest, breathing deep to steady himself. She was always managing to sneak up on him, even walking right in front of him. He was just too slow to notice her. Or she was too quick to notice. It was one of those, she was sure.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he said, grumbling as he adjusted his glasses.

“You’re the one who asked me to come.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” he said with a huff before he turned and walked toward the warehouse. He pulled along the dolly he had loaded the crate off. “Come inside, we don’t need to be seen even accidentally.”

She followed after him quickly. He was slow and getting slower so she passed him, slipping inside the building. She didn’t try to move so fast, it’s just how she was. But it did make things unbearably slow. She waited a lot. She waited in the circle of light from the one burning bulb high in the featureless ceiling. She tapped her foot lightly on the dusty floor. There were tracks left by Winston, his dolly, Angela, and the strangely familiar woman.

“Well then, what’s the story?” she asked, setting her hands on her hips.

“The story, Lena, is that you’re one of Overwatch’s most recognizable members,” he said. He locked the dolly’s wheels into place and sat down on it. The metal groaned and protested, but held his weight.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“What’s bad is that this could all end if you aren't careful. And very quickly," he said, looking over his glasses at her.

She frowned at him. “If I’m not careful?”

“All of this is still illegal, Lena. We’re all risking so much.”

“And you think I’ll blow it? I’ll give us away, then?”

“No, I don’t think that,” Winston said, shaking his head. He gave her an almost pleading look. “But you’re Tracer. The world knows Tracer just as they know Winston the talking gorilla. We have to be careful or we could bring the whole thing crashing down again.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and watched him with a frown. He moved to pluck his glasses off his face, that nervous habit he’d always had. His hand was moving slower and slower until he nearly seemed to stop. The world around her slowed, the way it always did when she was thinking. The faster she thought, the slower the world. It was a handy thing.

She didn’t want him to be right. She wanted the old days. The adventure and action, the heroism! Helping and saving and making things right. She’d managed a bit since the last days of Overwatch. She traveled, she helped when she could, she tried to make things better for the people she met. But she had always had to been on the move. That mostly suited her. She hated standing still for too long, sitting and waiting for things, but she did miss the way things had been. Overwatch had been a home as well.

And then the signal had gone out. That call. The call home! But then what? She still hadn’t been able to act more openly. King’s Row had been a disaster, even though she had been lucky enough to be there. If there had been other agents with her, then maybe. The museum had gone better, that was for certain, but even then they had barely succeeded. And on top of it, they had been demonized yet again in the news for being reckless. As if Widowmaker or that strange Reaper fellow had had no part in it. Or as if they would have been stopped by the police.

Damn it, he was right, though. She huffed and paced around the circle of light. Winston continued to ever so slowly reach for his glasses as she shot irritated looks at him. Why did he always have to be right? He was going to ask her to be more subtle. He’d say it politely, but it would feel more order than request. She was too visible to act as outright as she wanted and he would send her off somewhere quieter to work. If she beat him to the punch, though…

“You know what? You’re right. I’m the World Famous Tracer! It’s gonna be hard to blend in all the time,” she said as Winston began to move at his normal speed again.

He looked up at her and froze. She stared back, wondering if the world was doing that thing again. He blinked a few times and she knew it wasn’t. This was a more fun way to surprise him every time.

“So, I can’t go off playing the hero so much, right?” she said, walking over to him and putting her hands on her hips.

“Er...right, yes, I was thinking of--”

“Sending me some place quiet? Well, how about instead of some place quiet, you let me go off and do a quieter job? Real important one, but a teeny bit more under the radar.”

He narrowed her eyes at her, looking suspicious. They’d played this game before, so he might know what she was trying at. That had been a long time ago, though, so she was hoping he had forgotten the rules. Well, she was pretty certain it was a long time ago.

“What exactly would this job be?” he asked cautiously.

“I want to track down Amélie.”

“Amélie? She’s gone, Lena.”

“She’s not. You know she’s not. We fought her off at the museum the other day. Other week. Before.”

“We fought off Widowmaker, a Talon agent.”

She gave Winstone a reproachful look. “You know it was her, same as I do.”

“Maybe it once was,” he said with a heavy sigh, “but not any more.”

“We don’t know that. And even if it’s true, how can we just let her stay out there like this? She’s a danger, Winston.”

He didn’t say anything. He rubbed one hand at his forehead the way he did when he was thinking something he didn’t want to. She had him, she knew she did, but he would be loath to admit it. He worried about her too much. Lena walked over and put her hands on his shoulders. Even sitting down, he was taller than she was so she had to look up at him.

“I’ll be fine, Winston. You’ve got that look says you’re worried.”

“Promise me?”

“I promise, love. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, I’ll be out of there quick.”

He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “Alright. She dangerous, Lena, even if she really is Amélie. If you can’t bring her around, you will need to put an end to things.”

The thought made Lena’s stomach go up in knots but she nodded all the same. She was certain it wouldn’t come to that. Amélie could be saved, she felt it in her heart.

“Well, I better get going then. No time to waste,” she said with a forced laugh. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.

“Yes, I need to track down Reinhardt and see if I can attach a muzzle to his face. He’s worse than us. Recognizable and will gladly tell everyone he meets that Overwatch is back,” he said. He was unable to keep the grumble out of his voice. Reinhardt was a good man, but a nuisance to deal with. “Before I go, I brought you something.”

He pulled a small necklace box from his pocket, holding it out toward her in his palm. She looked at him in amusement but he simply waited. Finally, she plucked the box up and popped it open. She couldn’t hold back the small gasp of surprise that escaped her lips. “Winston, love, is this what I think?”

“Sort of, yes. It won’t replace the harness, though. So don’t try to do something crazy with only the necklace,” he said. He rest a hand on her small shoulder, “But it should help make your life a little more normal.”

They parted ways on the dock after a long hug. Winston turned his car toward the coast, toward the mainland. Lena turned toward London. Her motorcycle hummed underneath her, hovering a few inches off the ground. She frowned as she pulled on her helmet and goggles. Likely she’d end up across the Channel as well, but Talon had connections everywhere. London was as good a place as any to start getting answers.


	2. Chapter 2

Another warehouse, though this one felt less abandoned than the one at the docks. Lena wondered why everyone wanted to meet or do business in big, drafty warehouses. Weren’t there nice cafes or such places to meet? A bookstore? Everyone loved a bookstore. Have your secret meeting and then pick up something new to read. It was a win all around, in her opinion. But no, a warehouse instead.

There were people out front in plain dress who had hardly moved in hours. They were watching for anything, she knew, and she was quite visible. She wore her chest harness today, despite Winston’s gift. She figured she’d need the extra power to keep herself tethered to the present. So instead of a new pretty necklace, she wore the heavy glowing device on her chest and back.

Careful not to be seen, she snuck around the side of the building.. A large fence stood in her way but she didn’t really want over it so much as on it. The roof would be the easiest way in. Lena hopped from foot to foot for a moment before she ran forward. She leaped toward the fence and hurtled herself through space and time. Doing that made her all but vanish to anyone who might be watching.

It was still a strange feeling, even after all this time. At least, she thought it had been a long time now. She still remembered the first few times like they had just happened. Her memory was a little off these days, though. Events didn’t always follow in the proper order.

The toe of her shoe just caught the edge of top bar of the chain link fence, but it was enough. She pushed herself off hard and vaulted into the air over the fence. Once more she appeared to blink out of existence again. 

When she reappeared, her momentum carried her much further than it should have. She wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, but she could use it very well. The next part confused her even more, but she’d think about that later. Twisting herself in midair, she faced the building and shoved herself forward. It really, really shouldn’t have worked. She had nothing to push against, no way to change her momentum, but the world about her went weird. Everything blurred and there was an odd tinge to it. It went blue and faded, sort of like an old pair of jeans. When everything returned to normal again, she was standing on the roof of the warehouse.

Lena walked quick and quiet across the metal sheeting. She hopped forward through time as she could to move quicker. Every time, the world slowed down around her. She could creep over rusted sections or around places that looked like they might give her away. It might take the same amount of time from her perspective, but she didn’t waste any actual time. Or anyone else’s time? She wasn’t sure. It was effective, though.

She found a skylight, the glass dirty and broken in places. She lifted it cautiously to make sure the hinges weren’t going to scream. When they didn't, she dropped down into the building. It was a long way down, but she used the same method she used to get up on the roof. In reverse. Some how. She tried not to think about it too hard. The last time she did, she ended up untethered in her confusion and it took her a week to get back. Not that anyone noticed. According to anyone she asked, she spaced out for a minute and then started panicking all the sudden. She hadn’t been panicking at that point though. She’d been relieved.

The warehouse was quiet. And dusty. It didn’t look abandoned from the outside, but inside was different. Musty, stale air and flickering or burnt out lights. Her chronal accelerator cast a pale blue light down the rows of boxes and crates she had landed in. She knew this was a Talon front, she had very reliable sources on that, so where were they?

She drew her guns, just in case. Not that it really mattered since she was faster than anyone she was liable to run into. It still made her feel better. She made her way down the corridor of shelves. She edged around corners to try and find any signs of life, until she finally heard the voices.

“The boss wants everyone back here. Some kinda meeting,” a man said.

She heard footsteps, muttering that she couldn’t make out, and then the heavy thud of a door shutting. She snuck around until she found the door. Heavy steel with a keypad lock. She stared at it a moment before she just grabbed the door handle and tried it. It opened. No one ever thought to just try the door first, in her experience.

She peered inside and entered when she saw no one waiting for her. It was hallway with plain, unfinished drywall for walls and thin metal doors set in at intervals. She blinked in and out of sight, of existence really, as she moved down the hall to check the doors. Empty room after empty room. She sighed softly.

Admittedly, she hadn’t really been expecting it to be that easy and quick. What sort of evil agency leaves information on operatives laying around like that? It was always that easy in the movies, though, and she’d be a liar if she said she hadn’t hoped. Each door brought her closer to the voices. There were more than a few of them, overlapping and mixing as they chatted and laughed. Men and women both. She glanced around the corner. They were all armored in the black Talon body armor, heavy pulse rifles in hand. And they were all staring at her.

She swore and swung back around, pressing her back up against the wall. She raised her weapons, ready for them to come after her. But they didn’t. Instead, she could hear them all laughing again, louder this time.

“There’s no need to hide, Tracer,” said one of the men, “or should I call you Miss Oxton now?”

That sent a chill up her spine. She and the others knew about the attack on Gibraltar, the security breach, the stolen data. That’s why Winston had called them back, of course. But exactly how much they had gotten, what had been decrypted, was a mystery.

“We’ve known you were here since you started skulking around outside,” the man continued, “This was pointless. Why are you even here? What did you hope to accomplish? Just throw down your weapons and no harm need come to you.”

“Somehow, I don’t really believe you there,” she called around the corner.

“Don’t be foolish. No need to throw your life away on some mission from that monkey,” said the man. Others in the room snickered at the comment.

Lena ground her teeth together at that. She glanced around the corner again and did a quick count, speeding herself up briefly. Twenty-three of them, packed in a small room. She was fast, but so were bullets. And the more of them there were, the harder they became to dodge. Lena stepped around the corner and tossed her guns forward. The man was smiling when she teleported forward, moving too fast for them to react.

She plucked a small object from her belt as she approached. A pulse bomb. Small but especially dangerous in closed quarters. She appeared before the man who had been speaking. She watched his eyes go wide in surprise. People knew about her abilities. Seeing them was a completely different experience than reading about them. She smirked as she stuck the bomb to his chest. It began to blink its short countdown. A few men raised their guns and fired in surprise. She disappeared again and the bullets smashed into walls and one unfortunate compatriot.

The world went blue again for Lena. She could see what was happening, but it was difficult to make sense of it. Everything was happening the wrong way through time. Running backwards. No, that wasn’t right. She was running backwards. She slipped through her own timeline, displacing herself in the flow of things. Her hand drew away from the man. She zipped backward through the hall and she tried to bring her guns back into her hands but they weren’t tied to her. She stopped back at the juncture where she had begun, hands raised as if to shoot.

In front of her, the world went to chaos. The bomb exploded. The shockwave ripped through the room. Furniture and bottles shattered and sent a tempest of shrapnel through the crowd. The were all armored, but a few of the larger chunks of debris smashed hard into the unsuspecting. There was no sign of the man who had been speaking.

Lena teleported forward, pausing to scoop up her guns. She burst into the room, launching herself up in an arch as she fired in bursts. Two, three, four of them went down but that still left fifteen. And now they were ready. They positioned themselves behind the remains of the tables and just inside doorways. The air filled with bullets as they tried to pin her down. Lena leapt forward and felt a round punch into her shoulder. Hot waves of agony seared through her body, radiating out from the wound. Hissing in a breath, she rewound time again and not just for herself. A half a second was all it took and she twisted this time, feeling the bullet rush past her. Another hit her in the leg.

She rewound again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

 

Panting heavily, Lena holstered her pistols. The fight was over in less than three minutes. At least, it was for the others in the room. For her it had stretched on and on until she lost track of how many times she had to try again. Behind her, the room was filled with the injured, dying, and dead. She didn’t enjoy killing. She didn’t enjoy leaving people like this, hurting them or worse. But it was them or her. Talon agents weren’t exactly the nicest of people. They killed and hurt and destroyed. She could take solace in knowing that stopping this group would help many other people in the future.

She was intact, herself. No wounds, no injuries. But she could feel every spot where she had been hit during the firefight. They stung and burned, distant and faded but still there. Phantom pains that she knew didn’t exist but she could feel them all the same. They would all fade. For now, the crushing exhaustion was more of her concern. It took a lot of effort to control her abilities like that. She pushed herself too hard. Fatigue pressed down on her like a weight, urging her to just sit down and sleep where she was.

Shaking her head, she stumbled forward out of the room and down the hall. She could hear the whir of computers, fans, and machines behind the door at the end. That was a relief. She was worried that she might not find anything at all, that this was simply a trap. In the last room, she found the small cluster of data servers that she had wanted. She fished in her pocket and pulled out a data spike, plugging it into the computer. Talon wasn’t the only group adept at stealing data. The light on the spike blinked red a few times before flashing green. It was transmitting.

She waited. It would take awhile, so she slowed herself down in fits and bursts, letting the world around her rush past. She couldn’t sustain it, not with how exhausted she was. She risked untethering herself from time again, chronal accelerator or not. When it was finished, she plucked the small device off and made her way out to the street. She pulled a disposable phone from her pocket to call the police and left the warehouse behind her. Winston was next.

“Winston, love? You get it?” she asked when he answered.

“Yes,” he said, his voice low and gruff. She could already tell something was wrong. “I’m still going through it, but there isn’t much here. This group wasn’t exactly important. Not nearly enough to know the location of Widowmaker.”

“Amélie,” she corrected, “and I didn’t expect them too, but there must be something. Anything about other groups, at least?”

“I’ll need to do some digging. In the meantime, I might have a different lead. At least perhaps to more data we can use.”

She perked up at that. “Oh yeah? Where am I headed?”

He paused before chuckling. “How’s your French?”

“Je ne parle pas bien le Français,” she said, trying to keep the groan out of her voice, “Really though?”

“Really.”

“This better be worth it or I’m coming to kick your arse.”

She ditched the phone as soon as he hung up, crushing it under her heel before kicking it into a storm drain. She could hear the sirens behind her, dozens of vehicles swarming toward the warehouse. It wasn’t what she wanted. She hadn’t wanted to fight and kill and hurt tonight. She just wanted to find Amélie. France, though? She probably should have just started there, now that she thought about it. Where else do you find a brainwashed French woman?


	3. Chapter 3

It would have been a lovely night had Lena simply been on vacation. The air was cool without being cold, just enough for a light jacket and a blue and white scarf. She had wrapped that loose around her neck to hide the faint blue light from the necklace she wore. She wore it in place of the bulky harness she would usually have on. Weirdly, she almost missed the weight of the harness. It had been a constant companion for a long time now. But the necklace let her seem more normal. Hadn’t she wanted that for a long time now?

She sipped her coffee and sighed, looking up at the sky. Even if she hadn’t been in the middle of Paris, with its blinding lights, the huge and heavy moon would have washed away any signs of stars. Still, it was clear and the sky had that late night velvety look to it. Lena smiled to herself. They’d always teased her about being a secret romantic.

Maybe they were right after all. Why else would she be in Paris and looking for a woman most other people wrote off as dead? Why else would she be sitting at this cafe with a mysterious letter in her pocket? It had arrived just an hour after she had checked into her hotel room, slipped under her door. The hallway had been empty when she checked. There was nothing on the envelope and the slip of paper only had an address and a time written on it. That and the lipstick mark from where it had been kissed. 

Lena knew the scent that clung to the paper. It had been years since she smelled that perfume, she was certain of that, but she would never forget it. Nor could she mistake that shade of lipstick. Pale, pastel purple. She’d never admit it but she always noticed when Amélie wore it. Back before things changed. Back before everything fell apart.

She had shown even though it was likely a trap. The cafe was dark and mostly empty, huddled back in a quieter area far from the river and all the tourists. Lena sat herself in a corner and sipped a coffee, her eyes on the door. But the minutes had ticked by fast and slow and occasionally just normally. That last one was almost the worst. She shouldn’t have had the coffee. It made her jittery. Her fingers tapped the cup as she made the time jump around her quick and then lurch to a halt. She could only do it in fits and bursts. The necklace didn’t have near the strength of her harness and she risked untethering herself with too much effort. So she mostly sat, normally, and waited impatiently.

She had long since lost track of the time when the door chimed. The person who stepped in was tall and shapeless beneath a long coat. Lena squinted, but they were back lit to leave them nearly all in shadow. As they strode over, Lena caught a flash of yellow in their eyes. She tensed and scooted back in her seat.

“Amélie.”

“Bonsoir, Lena,” she said, her voice a low purr as she sat down. “I wasn’t sure you would be foolish enough to come.”

“So, you mean to hurt me then?”

Amélie smiled as she reached over. Lena recoiled but she only plucked up the half finished cup of coffee. Her fingers were long and nimble and, most noticeably, blue. The loveliest shade of blue Lena knew. A shade of blue she realized matched the scarf she wore. She blushed. 

“Hurting you is not my intent, ma chérie.”

Lena blushed even darker. “Don’t call me that.”

“What I intend is for you to give up this silly game of yours,” said Amélie. She turned the coffee cup slowly between her fingers before she took a sip. “At least your taste has improved.”

“Game? I’m trying to help you!”

“Help me? All you are trying to do is ease your guilt. You let your precious Amélie die and you want to make it better.”

“I didn’t! She didn’t! You...you’re alive, Amélie,” Lena said weakly, furrowing her brow.

Anger flashed through Amélie’s eyes and she slammed her cup on the table. The ceramic cracked and the coffee that didn’t slosh over the lip began to dribble out. “I am not Amélie. She is dead, you foolish child. And you will be too if you keep up this misguided mission of yours. Talon will not let you. Nor will I.”

“I just want to help you.”

“Enough. I gave you my warning,” she said, standing and shoving her chair back. She scoffed, looking down at Lena in distaste, “I do not want your help, girl. I do not need your help. Go home or you are going end up dead.”

Amélie stalked away, leaving Lena and the shop owner to sit in silence. Lena’s heart fluttered in her chest like a trapped bird. She couldn’t give up. She wouldn’t. She had to help Amélie. But if she was going to hurt Lena, then what could she do? No, something was wrong. Somewhere beneath the pounding of her heart, something gnawed at her. The world around her slowed in fits. The owner was approaching her and his motions slowed down fractionally until finally he froze.

What was it? She knew something was wrong. She sensed it. Something about it didn’t make sense. She breathed slow to calm herself. Amélie had come herself to warn Lena off. She’d come to scare her. To make sure she went back home and was safe from Talon. Lena’s eyes went wide.

She dumped a handful of money onto the table to pay for the broken cup before she ran from the shop. The poor owner would be confused at his vanishing patron, but she needed to move quick. Time caught up with her outside the shop, leaving her sprinting like a normal person down the mostly empty street. Amélie stood at the street corner a block away, watching a car pull up.

Lena put all her focus into moving. She threw herself through time and space, blinking in and out of existence as she raced to catch the other woman. As Amélie opened the door, Lena slammed bodily into it and wrenched it from Amélie’s hand. The metal dented under the force of her and pain shot through Lena’s arm and side. Amélie recoiled back sharply, bringing her hand against her chest with a hiss of pain.

“Why?” Lena asked, panting hard.

Amélie all but bared her teeth in a snarl. She grabbed the front of Lena’s shirt and lifted her off her feet. Lena struggled briefly before she was tossed aside like a ragdoll. She quickly scrambled to her feet as Amélie loomed above her.

“You stupid child. You had your chance.”

The breath rushed from Lena’s lungs as Amélie slammed her fist into her stomach. She choked and struggled to breathe again, stumbling backward. The next swing caught her in the jaw and sent her sprawling again across the concrete. She barely had time to suck in a chest full of air before Amélie pressed a foot down on her.

“Do you want me to kill you?” she asked. She ripped Lena’s scarf away and looped one long finger under the glowing blue necklace. “I can end this now.”

“If Amélie is dead, why come warn me?” Lena blurted out.

The taller woman blinked in surprise and Lena took her chance. She teleported away and rolled to her feet across the street. Amélie reached into her coat to pull out a handgun. Lena didn’t move but to touch her necklace, making sure it was still secure.

“I don’t mean a damn thing to this Widowmaker,” Lena continued, watching carefully. If Amélie so much as twitched her hand, she’d need to move quickly. “But Amélie? I remember Amélie and she seems to remember me. Why else would she come warn me?”

She twitched. Lena moved. Even slowing down time, she felt the bullet whistle past her head. Amélie moved slowly to track her until Lena fell back into normality. The dark barrel of the gun quickly pointed at her again.

“Don’t call me that,” Amélie said, her voice a growl.

“Amélie.”

Amélie fired again. Lena teleported again, hopping her way down the sidewalk as Amélie fired again and again. Bullets punched into the concrete walls of the buildings behind Lena, sending out puffs of dust. Lena pumped her arms at her side, trying to run and move as fast as she could. She felt slow. She was slow. The necklace didn’t give her enough control. Amélie trained the barrel of the gun on her and Lena pushed hard. The gun went off and Lena tumbled several feet past where she meant to end up. The shot missed but her foot caught on the curb and crashed down onto the pavement.

“Foolish. What do you think you can truly accomplish here?” Amélie said as she strode over. She stood above Lena, pointing the pistol down at her. “Stay down.”

Lena tried to stand. Amélie kicked at her hard, but Lena grabbed her foot and yanked as time slowed down around her. Amélie’s lips curled into a snarl and her finger pulled against the trigger, but she froze in place before she could fire. Lena scrambled away. She felt weird. Her limbs felt distant and fuzzy. She knew this feeling. She hated this feeling. The sense of dissociation, of loss, of lack of self. She was losing her hold on her place in time and space. She moved quickly. She wrenched the gun from Amélie’s hand and threw it away before grabbing a handful of the woman’s long, purple hair. Then time caught up with her.

Sensation flooded back into her limbs, filling them with pins and needles. Amélie swore as she stumbled forward, her head yanked back as Lena pulled hard on her hair. She caught herself quickly and drove an elbow back against Lena’s ribs. When she grunted in surprise and pain, Amélie jerked forward and freed herself, leaving Lena with a fistful of long, purple hair. Amélie wheeled around and swung hard. Lena reeled back and tried to move, to slow time, to speed up, to something. Her limbs fuzzed again. Her head felt like a balloon on a string and the world blurred just before Amélie connected.

Her fist drove into Lena’s gut and forced the breath from her lungs. She stumbled backward, clutching at her stomach as she struggled to breathe. Spots hung in the air, flickering and dancing before her eyes like a flimsy curtain between her and her attacker. Amélie stepped forward before slamming her knee up into Lena’s chest with a hard thud. Lena sprawled back onto the ground and the night sky swirled and swam above her. Pain lanced through her chest as she managed a small gasp, the faintest of breaths into her aching lungs.

“You really are just a child, aren’t you?” Amélie said as she stepped over and pinned Lena to the ground with a foot on her chest. “What did you think would happen? You would come here and I would let you whisk me away because you are sad about this dead woman?”

“I just want to help you, Amélie,” Lena said weakly.

Amélie sneered and pressed her foot down harder onto Lena’s chest. “Stop calling me that! Your guilt is going to get you killed.”

“It’s not guilt.”

“Then what? What is this fool’s errand of yours fueled by, Oxton?” Amélie said as she leaned down. Her expression softened fractionally, her yellow eyes almost curious. “You could do anything. You could run off to save the world. You could be a top agent with Talon. You could vanish and live your life. Why throw it away here like this?”

“Because you were my friend.”

“Friends die, chérie. You move on.”

“Because I loved you!”

Lena wasn’t sure what made her blurt it out. Perhaps it was desperation or simply a need for her last words to mean something. Amélie recoiled slightly at the words, shifting her weight off of Lena’s chest and letting her catch her breath. Before Amélie could speak, a car door opened and shut noisily on the empty street.

“Quel est le problème?” came a man’s voice.

Amélie looked over and curled her mouth distastefully. “Rien. Elle a décidé qu’elle est terminée,” she said before turning her gaze back to Lena. “Because if she continues this little quest of hers, she realizes she will end up dead. And that I will do it personally.”

The man grunted and returned to the car. Amélie took her foot off Lena’s chest and stepped back. Her yellow eyes moved appraisingly over the smaller woman, judging and weighing her with every flick of her gaze.

“Go home, Lena. Love will get you killed. You know that as well as I do,” she said as she turned away. “As well as Gérard.”

Lena dragged herself up to sit, rubbing her hands against her chest and stomach to try and ease the pain there. She listened to Amélie’s footsteps, to the growl of the car’s engine and whine of the repulsors as it drove away. Dawn wasn’t too far away by the time she staggered to her feet and went in search of a taxi.

She bolted the door of her hotel room when she finally slipped back into it. After a moment’s thought, she wedged a chair against it as well. She thought about dragging the desk over but she hurt too badly to try. Instead, she closed the curtains, grabbed her pillow and blanket, and slipped into the bathroom. She curled up in the tub, as far away from the windows and as low down as she could manage. She didn’t think she was still being watched, but she couldn’t be certain. It didn’t matter to her aching body and pounding head. She closed her eyes and fell asleep immediately.

 

Lyon. That was where Winston said to go next. Another train across France for a slim chance at something. Or perhaps just more nothing. Or perhaps she’d get herself killed this time, like Amélie promised. 

“You don’t have to do this,” Winston had said.

She sighed. A small voice in the back of her head told her to give up and go home. That Amélie had been right. No, that Widowmaker had been right. Amélie was gone and this was going to end in nothing but pain. She looked at herself in the mirror and traced the bruises that had blossomed across her breasts while she was asleep. They were purple and blue and ached to her core.

“Lena?”

“We both know I have to,” she said quietly. She hoped he couldn’t hear her uncertainty.

“Then Lyon it is. According to that data you stole for me, there’s a Talon group there. I’m still decoding the rest, but there’s more here than I anticipated. I’ve even found places to throw Reinhardt at to keep him from causing more trouble elsewhere.”

“Oh? Well, that’s great, Winston,” she said, trying to sound happier than she felt. “Look, love, I should get going or else I’ll miss my train.”

“Yes, of course. Stay safe, Lena. Check in often.”

“I will. To both of those. Promise.”

She hung up and leaned heavily on the bathroom counter. Something worse than pain flooded through her chest. Fear and sorrow and hopelessness filled her like cold water, pushing away everything else. Her eyes stung with tears and her shoulders shook as she began to sob.

What exactly had she expected? Something better than how things had ended up. That Amélie would remember and recognize what was happening. That she’d want help. That she would accept it. 

That hadn’t happened, but something else did. Didn’t it? Lena wiped away the tears on her cheeks. There was something Lena could take hope it, even if it was only a little: Amélie had known her. She had known what happened. She could say Amélie was dead all she wanted, but it was clear that she knew who she was. The problem was she just didn’t care anymore. To her, that past was gone. How could Lena help someone who didn’t want help?

She turned on the faucet and splashed water across her face, scrubbing away the tracks the tears had made. Her eyes were red and watery but she plastered on a smile. That was who she was, after all. Cheerful and hopeful and never giving up. She sniffled one last time before she dressed and put her harness on, replacing her necklace with it. The necklace let her be more elusive and far less obvious if she needed, but she didn’t feel safe with it. Not yet, at least.

She grabbed her bag and made her way out of the hotel, into the bright midday sun. Despite her misgivings, her feet began to carry her toward the train station. She didn’t know what she would do. Maybe she could fight Talon, give up on Amélie. That seemed farfetched, at best. If she struck at Talon again then Amélie would be there. Her only other option was to give up. Despite the voice that still told her to, she knew she couldn’t. She’d been through too much to give up like that. This was her life. She’d made that choice a long time ago.

Lena shook her head. She would never give up. Not on the world and not on Amélie. She’d come up with something. And if this was how things ended, how she died, then so be it. It was better to die trying than to live in failure. She picked up her pace, weaving her way through the crowd. She didn’t want to miss her train.


	4. Chapter 4

Lena was in love. Her heart raced in her chest, her hands felt clammy, her cheeks were hot with a blush. She was losing herself in warm, deep brown eyes. She wanted to touch soft, olive-brown skin. She wanted to run her hands through impossibly long black hair that shone under the hallway lights. She wanted to kiss soft, full lips until the lipstick had smeared completely off them. Maybe it wasn’t love, exactly, but Lena was certainly feeling something.

The mystery woman leaned down over Lena, offering a long-fingered hand to her. Lena hesitated a moment before she wiped her own sweaty hand on her pants and took the offer. The woman’s skin was warm as she helped pull Lena to her feet. She had ducked around the corner without looking and ran face first into the poor woman. While Lena had bounced off and hit the floor with a thump, the woman had stayed on her feet rather impressively.

Lena blinked a few times when she realized that woman was speaking to her. “Sorry, what’s that?”

“Oh! Pardon, English,” she said, her voice husky and low and heavy with an accent. “I asked if you were hurt.”

“No! No, I’m alright! Just a bit, y’know, stunned. Running into a love--a lady, I mean. Running into a lady, a person, like that. Just a surprise was all,” Lena said, her words running together. She laughed nervously.

The woman smiled, but raised her eyebrows in confusion. Lena blushed as she tried to calm her racing thoughts and heart. The woman glanced down at their hands. Lena was still holding firm to the slender fingers that had been offered to her. Her blush grew darker, leaving her pale cheeks almost crimson as she let go.

“Sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to!”

The woman chuckled softly, the sound just as dark and entrancing as her voice and those eyes. Eyes that seemed to flash mischief in them. “I have not met you, I do not think.”

“Oh, right! I’m Lena. Lena Oxton, but most people call me Tracer. You can if y’wanna!” she said quickly, winking at the woman. “I mean, you don’t have to, of course. Can call me Lena too. Lena is good. Or Tracer. Whichever....whichever you want!”

“Lena. It is a pleasure to meet you,” the woman said with a smile. It was a small, crooked, almost playful smile and Lena felt a shiver run up her spine. “I am Amélie.”

“Amélie.” Lena said the name slowly, liking the way it sounded and felt. “That’s a pretty name you got, love.”

“Love, hm?”

“I mean, it’s just a, y’know, thing and--”

Amélie chuckled again. It was so sweet that Lena took half a step closer as if she were entranced. Amélie reached over and plucked at the strap of Lena’s harness, straightening it where it had been pulled crooked in her tumble.

“I know,” Amélie said. “Now, you were moving rather quickly. Did you have somewhere to be? I hope I am not keeping you from something.”

Words she shouldn’t say crammed into Lena’s head and vied for position at her lips. She chewed her bottom lip a moment to keep them back. “Ah, no. No, you’re not. Just don’t like doing anything slow, is all!”

“Well, then maybe you can tell me what this is,” Amélie said as she trailed her finger down the strap of the harness and around the edge of the chronal accelerator. “I do not think I’ve ever seen something quite so, ah, stylish.”

“Oh, well, that’s just my--”

The announcement speakers crackled to life through the hall. _“Lena! You are forty minutes late for training!”_

“Whoops! I suppose I was late for something. Slipped my mind there,” Lena said with a laugh. “Maybe I’ll see you again soon, Amélie?”

“If you are not too busy being punished, perhaps.”

Lena flashed what she hoped was her most charming smile and slipped around Amélie. She raced down the hall toward the training rooms, hoping that Winston wouldn’t keep her too late tonight. If she timed it right, maybe she could catch Amélie in the mess hall. Nothing nicer than a convenient coincidence to hide hope behind.

Training ran her through the ringer. She’d have more than a few bruisers where she had been shot with the practice bean bags or had mistimed her teleports and smacked into a wall. In the end, Winston had simply let her go because of how poorly she was doing. When he asked what was wrong, all she could do was smile and laugh it off as an off day. She couldn’t admit to him that she was stuck with her thoughts trailing after some strange woman she’d just met. 

He’d looked at her suspiciously, but didn’t press the issue. He told her to be ready for actual training tomorrow and sent her off. Lena had hobbled off, supported by one of Winton’s assistants. The tech, Clara, slid an arm around Lena’s waist to help. It was more than Lena needed, but with the way the woman made eyes at her, Lena didn’t have much heart to say no.

Clara talked as they walked. She spoke about her work with Winston, Lena’s chronal accelerator, and more. Lena nodded and responded where she was supposed to, but her mind wandered on. When they reached the cafeteria, Lena quickly scanned for Amélie and spied her sitting alone. Before she could disentangle herself from Clara, a man took his seat next to Amélie.

“Who’s that?” Lena asked aloud before she could stop herself.

“Who?”

“Oh, the man over there with Amélie,” Lena asked, nodding her head toward the pair.

“Monsieur Lacroix? That’s her husband.”

Lena felt like she had swallowed a stone. Her stomach sank as she watched the pair talking and laughing. An odd coldness seeped through her chest. Clara was gently trying to lead her toward the food line, but Lena’s legs wouldn’t work properly.

“Lena?” Clara said, looking at her in concern.

“Sorry, don’t think I’m as hungry as I thought I was. Just gonna head back to my room.”

“Do you want help back?”

“I can make it just fine.”

Clara furrowed her brows as she looked at Lena’s face. “Are you certain?”

Lena looked at her a moment. Her eyes were hazel, not deep brown. Her skin was a sun kissed tan, not olive. Her black hair was short, not streaming down her back. “Actually,” Lena said, forcing a small smile, “Why don’t you come have a drink with me?”

“Really?” Clara said, blinking in surprise.

“Yeah, it’ll be nice after a long day.”

“Well, alright, then I’d like that.”

Lena offered Clara another small smile. As the two turned to leave, Lena cast one more look back at Amélie and her husband. Amélie was looking at her, eyebrows raised in curiosity. Lena quickly looked away, a flush rising in her cheeks.

Later that night, as Lena looked down at the woman sleeping beside her, she felt a stab of guilt and anger. Guilt for using poor Clara and anger at herself. Clara had been willing, almost too willing, eager to be alone and close to Lena. When Lena had pulled her close, she had all but melted as if this was her greatest fantasy. But when Lena draped a leg over her shoulder, she had closed her eyes and pretended that Clara was Amélie. Thinking back on it, she felt slightly ill.

She had been thinking about it for hours, wondering why she felt such a pull toward Amélie. She didn’t know her, barely spoke to her. A lust was certainly expected. The woman was gorgeous, enticing in a very warm, open manner. But why did it feel like more than that? It felt like she had known Amélie for ages despite what she knew. When she looked into her eyes, Lena felt like she was remembering a past that didn’t exist. Half formed memories fluttered in her mind.

She ran her hands along the edges of her chronal accelerator as she thought. It was heavy and boxy, the back of it warm as it laid against her bare chest and stomach. The straps were rough against her shoulders. Winston was promising her a new one that was lighter and more powerful. She still struggled at times, feeling a weird disconnect in her existence. Especially after she teleported or rewound her time line. She hooked her fingers under it and lifted it slowly away from her chest, the soft blue light on the front growing dimmer.

The further away from her skin she brought it, the stranger she felt. Her mind went fuzzy at the corners, her memories blurring. No, not blurring. It was something stranger than that. They slipped out of order. They mingled together. They stretched and combined and changed. She began to remember things that had never happened. She remembered big, brown eyes looking at her across a table. She remembered an olive skinned woman in a sleek black dress. She remembered laughter and jokes. She remembered Amélie.

Lena let the accelerator go and it smacked lightly back against her torso. Her mind quickly reordered itself, thoughts and memories whirring back together. She gasped loudly and clenched her eyes shut.

“Lena? What is the matter?” Clara said. Her voice was low, words slurred with sleep.

“Nothing. Nothing. I just had a weird dream,” she lied.

Clara murmured something but she was back asleep before she even finished the sentence. Lena sighed softly as relief flooded through her. She could have laughed as she slipped down into the bed. The sick sensation in her stomach loosened its hold on her and she gently pulled Clara closer to her. As the other woman snuggled in close, Lena shut her eyes and slipped off to sleep.

 

Amélie was sitting alone at the table for breakfast, reading the news. She looked up startled as Lena sat down heavily across from her, hands smacking on the table. Her glass of juice rocked threateningly but Lena grabbed it before it could tip.

“Lena! What was that about?”

“Sorry, love! I’m just excited this morning,” Lena said with a laugh.

Amélie set her datapad aside and quirked an elegant eyebrow. “Oh? May I ask what about?”

“So, you asked me what this was.” Lena jabbed her thumb at her harness. “It’s a chronal accelerator.”

“That is lovely. I have no idea what that means.”

“Right, so, it keeps me tethered to time. Without it, I kinda drift around, y’know? Not attached to the present. All time becomes one for me. A lake instead of a river.”

Amélie pursed her lips in thought, looking down at the pulsing blue light of the strange object. “I see. What about that makes you excited?”

“Well, you see, it’s still got some problems pinning me down. I can get flashes from things that haven’t happened. Sorta confusing, but sometimes handy. I got one of these last night. Know what about?”

“I could not begin to guess.”

“You. And me.”

Amélie raised both her brows at that one, a smile curving across her full lips. Pale, pastel purple lipstick today, Lena noticed. “Us, hm? What about us? Nothing inappropriate, I trust.”

“No! No, nothing like that,” Lena said quickly, holding up her hands as if to ward off the accusations. She could feel her cheeks growing hot again.

“No? Ah well. For the best since I _am_ married. You’re certainly cute when you blush, though.”

Lena blushed even darker. “Thanks, I guess. I just...it wasn’t anything like that, just that I could tell we’d be friends, right? For a long time. You and me, the best of friends.”

“Best friends?” Amélie said thoughtfully. She reached over and laid her hand atop Lena’s. “I think I’d like that, ma chérie.”

Heart thundering in her chest, Lena beamed happily. Amélie gave her hand a squeeze before she gathered up the remnants of her breakfast and excused herself. Lena watched her go, sighing softly. She’d only lied a little. There was something more. She could feel it in the back of her mind, a half-remembered memory from something that hadn’t happened yet. She sat for a long time, the scent of Amélie lingering around her, until Winston shouted at her over the intercom again.

 

Lena woke up. She had crammed herself into the seat on the train, curled up as best she could. Now every last inch of her hurt. She stood and stretched, popping joints and groaning loudly. Adjusting her accelerator, she made her way to the bathroom. She slumped against the tiny sink as soon as she locked the door. The water was cold as she splashed it over her face, giving a quick scrub.

She hated those dreams. This was far from the first time she’d had them. No matter how long it had been, they never got less vivid. Her stomach twisted like it was filled with snakes. She could still feel that longing, that first need for the woman she could never have. They had gotten closer, Lena falling more and more in love with Amélie. For her part, Amélie had been sweet and caring and gentle with the lovesick fool. She had known. How could she not? 

Lena opened the door and froze in her tracks. A note had been taped up on the wall across from the door. It was sealed with a pale purple kiss. She snatched it down and looked around. With no one near by, she bolted up along the car. No one looked up at her as she checked compartments and behind seats and looked out windows. There was no sign of her. Her scent still clung to the paper. It swirled around Lena as she sat down.

_You should have listened to me, Lena._ _I am sorry for this._

Lena read the note again, her brow furrowed in confusion. That was when she noticed the train was slowing down. She stood up, running to the front of her car. Through the window, she watched as the rest of the train pulled away from her. It moved faster and faster as her own car slowed and finally halted. She turned around to talk to the other passengers, but still no one moved. She moved to the nearest person and shook their shoulder hard, but the man only lolled to the side. He was cold, even through his shirt. Lena checked for a pulse but she already knew there would be one.

“No, no, no,” she whispered to herself as she looked around. Four other bodies sat in the car, exactly where they had been when she fell asleep.

She went to her seat and fished her pistols out from where she hid them in her luggage. She was shocked she had been able to get them through security, but she’d managed. Carefully, uncertainly, she edged out of the car. Nothing moved but for the wind through the trees. She hopped down, the gravel between the rail ties crunching under her shoes. With her back against the car, she stepped to the corner.

“Bonne nuit.”

The butt of the rifle caught her full in the face before she could react. Her nose crunched under the force, her lips breaking. Blood spurted down her chin and over her chest as she stumbled backward. Amélie stepped after her, shaking her head. For a brief moment, before she lost consciousness, Lena thought she looked disappointed.


	5. Chapter 5

Widowmaker sat at the rickety wooden table and disassembled her rifle. At this point, she could do it with her eyes closed but something about the way it came apart was soothing. She liked watching as it went to pieces, laid out orderly in front of her, knowing that it would all go back together perfectly. If anyone had asked how long it had taken her to become so familiar with the gun, she would have been unable to answer. It seemed to her that she had known it inside and out the moment she had picked it up. The same was true of a multitude of other weapons. She was familiar with nearly the entire arsenal at Talon, despite only having ever used a handful of them.

As she cleaned her rifle, she glanced up at Tracer. She had carried the unconscious woman away from the train tracks, following an overgrown path in the woods to an abandoned house. There were many places like this, known by people in her trade even those not in Talon. They were hidden and forgotten, safe places to hide after a failed or botched mission. No one would bother them here, no one would dare. So Widowmaker had bound and gagged Tracer, binding her to a chair and sitting her across the table. Then she waited, keeping her hands busy and her mind focused.

Tracer came to as she was reattaching the barrel. The woman struggled at her bindings, speaking into her gag. Widowmaker ignored her and picked her rifle up. Tracer froze, but Widowmaker pointed the gun at the wall away from her captive. She settled it against her shoulder, finger off the trigger, and checked the sights. She made a last few adjustments before she set the rifle back down, satisfied with her work.

“You did not listen,” she said finally, her voice even. She was not angry or upset or even surprised. “I would like you to give me a reason not to kill you now and dump your body in the woods.”

Widowmaker stood and stepped around the table. She reached down to undo Tracer’s gag. Her fingers were nimble and gentle, calloused on her thumb and first two fingers but otherwise soft. The warmth of Tracer’s skin against her own much cooler flesh sent little tingles along her arm. She didn’t physically touch many people these days, making the contrast that much more noticeable.

“Amélie --”

Widowmaker struck her across the face. She didn’t do it terribly hard, not enough to do much more than redden Tracer’s cheek and surprise her. There was no need for more yet and she didn’t need to muddle the woman’s brain up any more than she had to. Promises and declarations made while addled were often forgotten or discounted.

“I said give me a reason not to kill you, yet you decide to do the one thing you know makes me angry,” Widowmaker said. She did not look angry but for a slight downturn at the corners of her mouth and a thinning of her lips. She did not truly feel anger at the name either, not exactly, but it was an easier thing to say. She was not here to explain herself to this woman.

“Widowmaker, then.”

She allowed herself a small smile. “Better.”

“Why haven't you killed me already?” Tracer asked.

Widowmaker walked back to her chair and sat, leaning back so that she could rest her heavy boots on the table. She had worn rather more practical clothes for this. The femme fatale look was enjoyable enough but not particularly suited to train hijacking and woodland excursions. She looked down at her hands, examining the oil and dirt that had accumulated under her nails as she cleaned her rifle. Tracer’s question was one she had posed to herself more than once already.

The woman had proven herself to be an enjoyable prey in the past. Her talents and skills made her a difficult and unique challenge in combat. But that became less obvious the more Tracer simply refused to properly fight and instead trailed along like a sad, wounded puppy. 

“Killing you this way would be so dull, chérie.”

“But you want me to beg anyway?”

Widowmaker smiled a smile that reached no where near her eyes. “I want you to explain.”

“What’s the difference?”

Widowmaker sighed. “Begging is pathetic and has no meaning to me. But I want to know why you have decided to do what you are doing. We had such a good relationship, you and I.” Tracer blinked in confusion so she continued. “I would go somewhere to try and kill a target. You would try to stop me. I would kill my target anyway, because you never do what you need to, but it was enjoyable. Almost fun. You were a challenge. But this new tactic where you throw yourself uselessly into danger...it is pointless nonsense.”

“It’s not pointless.”

“No? What have you accomplished, souris?”

“I’m here talking to you.”

“Tied to a chair!” Widowmaker said with a laugh. “What good is that?”

“You’re listening, aren’t you? Even asking me to talk. Better than before.”

The look on Tracer’s face was so earnest that Widowmaker frowned. It was an actual frown, one of irritation and confusion instead of one for show. She dropped her feet off the table and let her chair fall back on all fours.

“Then talk,” she said, softly and cooly.

“Do you remember back when we first met?”

Widowmaker’s frown deepened. She did remember. She remembered a lot more than she was willing to say, willing to admit even to herself. The past was dead and buried, there was no reason to dwell on it. Who ever she was then was gone and she intended it to stay that way. And so did Talon, though their means for it were much more insistent and effective and painful than her own method of simply pretending she couldn’t recall.

“Perhaps,” she said slowly. She forced herself to stop frowning, to stop expressing anything at all. She kept her face blank and calm as she watched.

“I loved you right away, but you knew that. I thought i was being clever and hiding it then. I told you that i knew we would be close, but that wasn’t really what I knew. I knew I loved you and that at some point, there would be more to us. It seemed insane at the time, even to me. That I could be feeling things that hadn’t happened yet. And you were married. Wasn’t like I could just say we'd be…”

Tracer trailed off and her gaze dropped. She didn’t see the way Widowmaker tensed or how her mouth tightened. She took a breath and Widowmaker did the same, quietly and slowly to calm herself. That flash of anger at even the slightest mention of Gérard was new and she didn’t like it at all.

“I realized, y’know, what I was feeling. What I saw when I looked at you,” Tracer continued. Her voice was low enough that Widowmaker had to lean in closer to her. “I was seeing you from now, even from after now. After everything, after I saved you.”

That was too much. Widowmaker stood abruptly and shoved the table out of the way. Tracer looked up at her in surprise and huddled back in her seat, trying to make herself look smaller. This was real anger and it washed over Widowmaker in a hot wave. Her hands trembled and her muscles twitched. Her teeth ground together as she tried to find the words she wanted. How long had it been since she’d felt any emotion this strongly? Why now? What was it about this woman?

But no, it wasn’t simply about Tracer. She was angry at herself. This woman was a constant reminder of a past that Widowmaker simply did not wish to remember. A past that was simply pain and would cause her more pain. Not the pain of regret, but actual physical pain. What would Talon do if they knew she was having these thoughts? Yet she let Tracer exist. Let the words she said crawl under her skin and wriggle through her mind. She even came up with excuses not to kill Tracer. 

“Save me. Save me? That is all you can say, is it?” Widowmaker snarled as she reached down. Her long fingers wrapped around the front of Tracer’s chronal accelerator. “What makes you think I need your saving? What makes you think I want it? If I needed to be saved, I would save myself. I do not need you to be my savior, my knight. I am not a damsel, no matter what your fevered imagination lets you believe.”

“Amélie. Amélie, please, I just want to help.” There was real fear in Tracer’s voice for the first time.

“I should have simply disposed of you already. Everything you do is for yourself, for your own delusions. You do not even think about the damage you cause. Not to me, not to the world around you,” Widowmaker said, spitting the words out. “If you truly were the hero you wanted to be, you would have killed me the first chance you had.”

Before Tracer could respond, Widowmaker yanked hard on the accelerator. It pulled away from Tracer’s chest and the woman screamed. Something was wrong. Even Widowmaker knew this wasn’t how it should be. She should fade with the harness gone completely for a few minutes. She would disappear into time for good. It was a cruel fate, a decision driven now by anger and spite. But this? This was not how it was supposed to be. 

Tracer screamed and the sound seemed to come from everywhere, filling the house and pressing down on Widowmaker. She flickered, glowing brightly like electrical static. For a moment, Widowmaker was certain there were two, three, four Tracer’s sitting in front of her. In her own shock, Widowmaker let go of the accelerator. It thumped back against Tracer’s chest and the screaming stopped. Whatever Widowmaker saw faded as quickly as it started, leaving nothing more than a small woman tied to a chair.

“Lena?” Widowmaker asked uncertainly. “Souris? Are you there?”

Widowmaker leaned down. Her anger had faded and left her cold. This was not the usual chill she knew, the induced blankness that Talon had given her. This was...what? Fear? Concern? No, of course not. Why would she be afraid or even concerned for this woman? She was an enemy. It was shock and nothing more. She took a breath and told herself again that it was nothing.

Tracer blinked several times, tears running from her big brown eyes. There was pain in them. Her body trembled from the strain Widowmaker had put on her, but it was more than that. Something far more personal.

“What happened?” Widowmaker asked. She put a finger under Tracer’s chin and lifted her face. She knew she shouldn’t care. She chalked it up to curiosity.

“I don’t know,” Tracer said, her voice weak. It trembled as much as the rest of her. “That’s never happened. I was...I don’t know. I was somewhere. Not here. Not...not now.”

“Not now? What do you mean?”

“They’re coming, Amélie. For you.”

Tracer’s eyes met Widowmaker’s, staring deep into them. Widowmaker felt herself recoil slightly. Was it the words or that look? It was hard and angry but there was fear in there too. Not fear of Widowmaker, no. It was too unfocused to be that, too nebulous. There was something else. Something worse.

“Who, souris? Who is coming for me?”

There was an electronic chirp from behind her. Hidden as the abandoned house might be, it was not completely unequipped. Those who used it knew someone might accidentally stumble on it at some point, so they had, collectively but without organization, added what they could. The noise came again and again, quicker with each pulse and Widowmaker realized what it was: proximity alerts. And there were many of them. Whoever was coming for her was already here.

“Who is it?” she asked again, her tone sharper.

“Talon.”

Widowmaker felt a sensation in her stomach that she hadn’t for some time. An emptiness, like a pit had opened up inside her before the walls of her abdomen clenched tightly. She looked into Lena’s eyes and saw the fear in them again. And reflected back in them was her own.


	6. Chapter 6

Amélie reacted quickly. It was obvious she was used to having to move at a moment's notice. She pulled a knife from her belt and cut the ties on Lena’s wrists and ankles. She retrieved a duffle bag from somewhere and shoved Lena’s pistols back in her hands. She did this all wordlessly, ignoring the bleating of the proximity sensors behind her.

Lena was not so quick. Her face hurt and she was certain it was swollen where Amélie had hit her with the butt of her rifle. Her arms and legs were stiff and cramped from being bound. Her head had hurt and probably still did but she couldn’t tell. It was hidden beneath the ache that was threatening to consume her entire body. It was more than physical, it went to the core of her and then stretched impossibly. It was as if she had always known and would always. It was the feeling of being torn out of time.

She forced herself to focus, tried to ignore the weirdness that she suddenly found herself with. She could see Amélie in front of her, Amélie in the woods, Amélie in a city. She could see Amélie laughing and crying and screaming. She could see Talon outside, inside, surrounding them. When Amélie grabbed her shoulder, she was the olive skinned beauty Lena remembered from so long ago before she snapped back to blue skin and yellow eyes..

“Which way are they coming from? Did you see?” Amélie asked. “Focus, Tracer.”

“I don’t know. Why?” Lena said blearily.

Amélie shook her roughly. “Lena! I need you to do this. I need you to focus. If they find us, they are going to kill us.”

“Kill us? But you’re you.”

“Yes, kill us,” Amélie hissed, her eyes narrowing. “Now focus!”

Lena shook her head slowly and Amélie tightened her grip. Lena tried to focus as images ran through her head. Had she seen these? So much had blurred through her mind when Amélie grabbed her accelerator. She was struggling to process any of it. She felt lucky that she’d even noticed the people converging on them. She’d seen them walking through the woods, saw them landing a transport by the…

“Tracks. The train,” Lena said.

Amélie grabbed Lena’s hand and bolted from the room. Her bag bounced against her side and she held her rifle in her free hand, knuckles a soft, pale blue where she gripped it too tightly. The pair skirted around the house before slipping out into the woods. There was no path that Lena could see, but Amélie seemed to know the way. She ran full tilt through the underbrush, seeming not to notice or care about the branches that lashed out at the two. Lena did her best to fend them off.

“Where are we going?” she said, surprised to hear herself already breathless.

Amélie squeezed her arm again, nails biting into Lena’s skin. “Stay quiet.” 

Lena obeyed. She let Amélie pull her along, trusting her for now. Something in her words, the way she moved troubled Lena. Amélie crouched slightly, hunching herself down as she ran. Her bright yellow eyes kept glancing back over her shoulders even though Lena couldn’t hear anyone following them. Lena’s stomach clenched as the situation began to overcome the fog in her mind. Was Amélie afraid?

Why should she be? She was Talon. She was their prize agent, a mockery of what Overwatch had been. She was stolen and twisted and turned into what she was now. Lena had felt that Talon had come here after both of them. She’d seen them breaking into the house, weapons raised at Amélie.

“Why?” she asked when Amélie had finally slowed. They’d run for hours before pausing to rest and drink. “Why are they after you?”

“You tell me. You are the one who saw it,” Amélie said. She took a drink from a bottle of water, her gaze toward Lena but looking past her.

“I don’t know why,” she said. Lena chewed the inside of her cheek a moment. “You do or you wouldn’t have believed me. What’s going on, Amélie?”

Amélie packed their water back into her bag and sat checking her rifle. Aside from the mechanical clicks of the weapon, there was no other man made sounds around them. Birds sang, insects chittered, and the breeze blew through the canopy above them. Amélie finally let out a resigned sigh.

“They likely think I have gone rogue.”

Lena blinked in surprise. “Have you?”

“I was supposed to ignore you. When I came after you on the train, I was ignoring orders,” Amélie said, nearly whispering the words.

“So you could just explain to them then? That it was a lapse in judgement or something, right? Why run?” Lena winced at what she was saying. She’d tried so hard to pull Amélie away from Talon and here she was now trying to send her back.

Amélie stood, looking over with a blank expression. Lena could see the way the muscles in her neck and jaw tightened, the tightness at her mouth. And her eyes were...what was that? This was more than fear. This was something deeper.

“I do not wish to explain. And we do not have the time,” Amélie said.

Lena frowned but nodded. When Amélie offered her hand over to her, Lena took it and held on tightly. The pair took off into the woods once more, running on and on until Lena could barely keep up. Amélie seemed tireless, though she was not recovering from injuries, Lena reminded herself. Then ran until Lena could feel only the burning pain of exhaustion in her legs. Her heart thundered in her chest, her breath roaring through her chest.

The sun had nearly set by the time Amélie began to slow. It hung along the horizon and sent a wave of blood red light through the trees that trickled down to darkness around them. Lena tried to pause long enough to catch her breath, but Amélie pulled her along.

“Over this way,” she whispered. She ran her thumb along Lena’s hand, a strangely soothing gesture.

She parted her way through the underbrush, Lena tagging along quietly behind her. Even if she wanted to question, she felt dead on her feet. Thankfully, it only took a few more minutes to get to where Amélie wanted. A few mostly intact houses stood amid the woods while a few more were reduced to crumbling debris. Whereas the last safe house had been disguised like a hunting cabin, set in a small clearing, these had obviously been abandoned. Amélie carefully opened the door to a two story one with a tree growing up out through the roof.

“Holiday cabins, I think,” Amélie said to the unasked question that flashed through Lena’s head, “Forgotten during the Crisis. They are difficult to find unless you know exactly where they are.”

The stairs were rickety but held, creaking beneath their weight as they climbed. Leaves and twigs covered the floor, along with the occasional small animal bone left behind by whatever lived in the tree. Lena half-heartedly scuffed a space clean with her foot before she sank down to the floor and leaned against the wall. Amélie set her gun down and rummaged through her bag. She tossed a protein bar over into Lena’s lap.

“Will they find us here?” she asked as she unwrapped the food. She took a bite and forced herself to chew it slowly. Scarfing it down would only make her sick.

“It is possible,” Amélie admitted as she took a seat across from Lena. “I hope it will take them time enough for us to rest and leave.”

“Are you going to tell me why you ran?” Lena asked. When Amélie didn’t answer, she pressed on. “I can’t imagine they’d be angry you caught me. After what I’ve done? I do everything I can to screw up their plans.”

“They would have congratulated me,” Amélie said, not looking at Lena. “After that, they would have sent me to be reconditioned.”

“Reconditioned?” asked Lena, though she had an inkling already that she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

“I remember everything,” Amélie said, her voice holding an edge of bitterness that surprises Lena. “Who I was before this. Who you are. I remember all that time. It is not gone from me, but my feelings on it are suppressed.” She frowned as she unwrapped her protein bar. “That is not the best word, but I do not know how to describe it. They have made it so I do not care about myself or who I was since they could not take it from me.”

Lena furrowed her brows. “But you know they’ve done this to you?”

“They have done it multiple times,” Amélie said. This time her voice was flat. “When they believe it starts to lose effectiveness, I am reconditioned.”

“You don’t want it to happen?”

Amélie smiled ruefully. “It is not a pleasant thing.”

“Then you want to be free from them?”

“Would you wish to be tortured? I think it is a normal response for one to run from pain.”

Lena finished her food and wiped her hands on her pants. “Why now? Why not before?”

“They often do it before I know the conditioning is slipping,” Amélie said as she rubbed the heel of her palm to her forehead. “When it is fresh, I am different. I feel nothing. I have no desire of my own, not even to save myself. I do what they command.”

“Do you feel anything now?”

“I feel that we should sleep. We will have to move again soon.”

Lena couldn’t protest that. Her body was screaming for rest. They both drank from Amélie’s supply of water and Lena found herself incredibly thankful that of all the people she went on the run with, it was someone used to it. As Lena tried to find a less filthy place to sleep for the night, Amélie set a pair of what she insisted were proximity sensors down stairs. Lena wasn’t so certain that’s what they were, but she wasn’t going to question the woman who survived like this.

When she finally found the best spot she was going to, Lena sprawled out on her back. Her limbs were thankful and she hoped they’d untense soon. Amélie walked back upstairs, her footsteps impossibly soft on the creaking wood of the house. She knelt down next to Lena, who watched her in confusion. She nearly bolted herself upright when Amélie lay down next to her and then half draped herself across Lena’s body. Only the weight of her and the heavy, lead like exhaustion that flooded Lena’s body kept from still.

“What are you doing?” Lena whispered hoarsely.

“You give off too much heat.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“If they come by here, they may use thermal cameras,” Amélie said. “I give off less heat. I can hide you like this.”

Lena blinked a few times in the darkness. She wasn’t sure that was right. Amélie did know much more about Talon than she did, though. “Is that possible?”

“Possible, yes. Hopefully unlikely.”

They lay together quietly and waited for sleep to find them. Animals called outside and the forest around them seemed more alive at night than it did during the day. Lena tried to block it out and was nearly asleep when Amélie scoffed.

“You stink of sweat,” she muttered.

“What? Of course I do. So do you,” Lena retorted before she actually sniffed Amélie’s hair. No sweat, just flowers. “How the hell do you smell like flowers?”

Amélie laughed quietly. “A secret. Sleep now.”

Lena turned her head just a little so that the tip of her nose touched Amélie’s hair. She closed her eyes, slowly slipping her arm around the cool form of the woman lying atop her. Amélie shifted closer at the touch and Lena smiled. She fell asleep surrounded by the smell of jasmine.

 

Both women dreamed that night. For Amélie, it was the first time in a very long time. She slept fitfully, twitching and shifting against Lena. She clung to her, hands clamping down tightly. She whimpered her way through dreams of dark rooms. She knew these rooms. She knew them better than she ever wanted. In the centre of each of them sat a chair. The leather of the seat was cracked and she could feel it bite into her skin as she was strapped down.

A man without a face leaned over her. Wires extended from his fingers and burrowed into the skin of her face. She struggled, pulling at the straps but they only tightened. She opened her mouth to scream but she had no voice. Pain coursed through her, like her blood had been replaced with shards of glass. She felt her skin split. Her mind seared. She screamed on and on in silence.

Amélie shuddered when she opened her eyes. Her mouth was dry and when she reached up to rub her eyes, she found her face wet. She blinked in confusion, looking around for any source of it until she realized they were tears. Had she been crying? She didn’t cry. She couldn’t cry. She wiped her face and stood, walking to one of the windows. It was overgrown with branches and vines, but she could see out a little ways. The sun was coming up, but she would let Lena sleep a bit longer. She’d need to recover.

Lena snored softly, unable to properly breathe through her swollen nose. Her mouth was open and without Amélie to lay on her, she had flung her arms over her head. She slept deeply and dreamed of a white room. It faded at the edges, sprawling out into nothingness, but she didn’t pay attention to that. In front of her was a bed. It was white and she knew it was soft. Blankets and pillows piled high on it and a woman lay amongst them.

Her olive skin was smooth and soft, her limbs long and supple, her breasts full and bare. She smiled at Lena with plump, curved lips and held out a hand. Lena walked toward her. She reached up to pull off her own clothes only to find herself naked. Her accelerator and harness were gone. She slipped into the woman’s arms, leaned in to kiss her, and cried out in pain. She didn’t see the knife but she felt it. Lena jerked awake with a curse and rolled over, trying to reach her back.

“Damn it, something bit me,” she muttered.

“Let me see,” Amélie said as she walked over. She handed Lena a protein bar before crouching down behind her and tugging her shirt up. “Just an ant.”

Amélie brushed the insect away and pulled Lena’s top down properly, her fingers brushing against the bare skin at the small of her back. Lena shivered, uncertain if the touch was intentional. She unwrapped her food and ate it in silence. It tasted like chalk when she wasn’t starving.

“You tried to kill me yesterday,” Lena said finally, her voice quiet.

“I did,” said Amélie. She didn’t hesitate and Lena flinched just a little at the bluntness.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Right now? Because Talon is after you as much as they are me. If you would prefer to try and escape on your own, you are welcome,” Amélie said as she moved around Lena to sit in front of her. “But I know them better than you. I can help you.”

“Why would you want to help me?”

Amélie frowned just a little. “Because they know me. If they found the cabin yesterday, they will know my other hiding locations. They will know where to look. They do not know how to find you except when you are showing off.”

“I don’t show off,” Lena scoffed.

Amélie responded to this with a disbelieving look before she continued. “I need your help, Tracer.” She paused. “Lena. I need your help, Lena. Is that not what you have been trying to do?”

“You tried to _kill_ me,” Lena said, her brows furrowing.

“That is what we do. I have tried to kill you many times, but that never stopped you from trying to help. If you had ever actually attempted to stop me, you would have tried to kill me,” Amélie said as if she were explaining something as mundane as table settings. “I did not attempt to kill you because you are you, Lena. I was simply doing my job.”

Lena dropped her gaze down to her half eaten protein bar. She wanted to believe Amélie. A voice inside her urged her to. Her heart urged her to, aching to accept this answer and help the woman she’d tried for so long to save. This could be her chance, it said. But that wasn’t right. The explanation wasn’t right. Amélie had tried to kill her when she was acting on her own, without orders.

Amélie smiled. “You can trust me, Lena.”

Lena hesitated a moment before she shook her head. “No, I can’t. I want to, but I can’t. You didn’t try to kill yesterday because you were ordered to. That’s the whole reason they’re after you.”

“Yesterday we were still enemies,” Amélie said matter of factly. “Today we need each other. It is as simple as that.”

“It’s not as simple as that. For all I know, this could be some screwed up plan of yours to kill me for fun. Or worse. I can’t trust you, Amélie. Just because you’re acting like they’re after you or suddenly you’re not controlled by them,” Lena said sharply, the tension rising in her voice. It had been so much easier when she was too hurt or tired to think clearly. “I’ve seen what you can do. I’ve felt what you can do. As much as I want to save you from Talon, as much as I want the old Amélie back, I just can’t trust you. Not like this. Not now.”

Amélie’s smile faded and she chuckled humorlessly. “It is still so cute when you think you’re being clever. When you think you know more than you do. Finish your food. We need to move soon,” she said, her voice flat and cool. She stood, casting one more hard glance at Lena before she turned away. “And I wish to remind you that you are the one who first said Talon was coming for me.”

Lena winced at that before she finished her breakfast. She choked it down and chased it with what water they could spare that morning. She took the duffel bag, looping it across her torso so it pressed against her back and left her hands free. She hoped that would give Amélie some extra incentive to behave. Lena running off with the supplies would mean she’d be in trouble, if Talon was truly after her. Pistols in hand, she crept downstairs behind Amélie, who held her rifle at the ready. The forest was quiet save for the birds and the bugs. The pair slipped outside, back into the forest, and headed for safety.


	7. Chapter 7

Amélie heard the plane first. She grabbed Lena’s arm and yanked hard enough to pull her clean off her feet and down into the underbrush. Lena’s duffle bag thumped to the ground and she started to swear before Amélie clamped a hand over her mouth. Huddled beneath the leaves and branches, pressed close to the cool earth, Lena could hear the rumble of engines.

The plane passed by slowly just north of them. The thrusters roared louder and louder as it got closer, the trees rattling and shuddering beneath the exhaust. Birds flew in shocked swarms away from the disturbance, small animals skittering through the brush. It slowed to a crawl in the sky, hanging heavily and threateningly all black metal and sharp angles. Lena could see figures standing in the open side doors, scanning the ground beneath them with weapons. They were pointing at something down toward the forest, scanning back and forth. Lena’s breath caught in her chest in a tight ball.

It seemed to pause, hanging heavily and threateningly, and Lena could see figures standing in the open side doors. They were pointing at something down in the forest, their eyes scanning back and forth. Lena’s breath caught in her chest.

She exhaled against Amélie’s hand when the plane finally started to move again, drifting from view. Amélie took her hand away, but made no move to get up. She remained crouched with her body pressed up close against Lena’s. Her mouth was shut tight, her eyes narrowed.

“That was closer than I wanted,” Amélie finally said, her voice a strained hiss. “They must have brought in more planes to look for us.”

“They really want us back badly,” Lena said as the pair finally stood up. “I kind of figured they’d wait until we got spotted in a city, not actually scour the forest.”

“They spent a lot of time and money on me. They will want me back sooner than later.”

“What were they pointing at down here?” Lena asked, motioning toward where the plane had vanished.

Amélie brushed the dirt and leaves from her arms and adjusted her rifle over her shoulder. “They probably have heat sensors. They will have trouble picking me up with them, but you’ll be easier to see. We were lucky this time.”

“They know I’m with you?” Lena asked, frowning. She hoisted the bag back over her shoulder and followed Amélie as she started to move again.

“I think they are hoping you are. They will have certainly realized they cannot use my implants.”

“Your implants?”

Amélie nodded, skirting around a spiny bush. She reached out as they passed and absently snapped a twig from it. “They put implants in my weapon and in me. I took them out not long after, as soon as I found them. This was years ago.”

“What did you do with them?”

“Carried them with me on missions. Left them on a train headed west before I came to get you.”

Lena frowned, stumbling a bit over a hidden root. A train? Something about that bothered her, a little nagging thought in the back of her mind. “How did they find you so quick, then?”

“I will admit, my little stunt back on your train was not my most, ah, subtle plan,” Amélie said lightly, waving her hand dismissively. “They got to the cabin quicker than I anticipated, though.”

“My train,” Lena repeated slowly. The wriggling thought finally took form, blooming bright and sudden in her mind. “You killed those people on the train.”

Amélie sighed and shook her head. “No, I did not.”

“I checked them!” Lena said, stopping in her tracks. She racked her brain, trying to think back to those few moments before she stepped off the train, but her memories were fuzzy and insubstantial. “You killed them!”

Amélie stopped and turned around. Lena could see the way her jaw was clenched, the muscles twitching below her ear.

“I have killed many, many people,” Amélie said tersely, “but I did not kill the people on the train. A spider has more tricks than death.”

“I don’t believe you. I checked and, and--”

“I do not have time for this. _We_ do not have time for this,” Amélie snapped. She stepped closer, the uneven ground making the already tall woman loom over Lena. “First you chase me down, hunt for me so you can assuage your guilt and make yourself feel better. Now you decide that you cannot trust me, now when we are being hunted?”

“Amélie, you don’t--”

“Enough. This is the last time we will have this conversation. We cannot afford to keep doing this, Tracer. Will you trust me?”

Lena hesitated for a long moment before she finally shook her head. “I don’t know if I can.”

Amélie reached out and snatched the duffle bag from Lena before she could react. Without a word, she turned and walked away, striding into the forest. Lena blinked a few times in surprise before she followed.

“Amélie, wait.”

Amélie kept moving.

“Let me carry the bag. It’s easier.”

Amélie tightened her grip on the bag and quickened her pace, shoving through brush. Branches and vines snagged at her, snapping sharply at Lena too as she trailed behind. Lena slipped ahead of Amélie, blocking her path, but Amélie simply brushed past the smaller woman. Lena watched Amélie walk, watching as she started to disappear in the undergrowth. She looked up at the sky for a moment and she thought she heard the growl of engines not far off.

She didn’t know where they were. If she could make it back to the train tracks, she could maybe follow them to the nearest town, but it could be days away for all she knew. And _could_ she even find the tracks again? They’d adjusted direction a few times, but she thought if she just went east, she could find them.

Lena swore under her breath and followed Amélie. Amélie simply continued to walk, not pausing to tell Lena to go away or even to acknowledge that she was still there. They trudged along, silent and distant from each other, until the sun began to set.

 

Widowmaker set her bag down in a small patch between trees. She wanted to keep moving, but even she wouldn’t risk navigating the forest in the dark. She ignored Tracer when she caught up, standing awkwardly by a tree nearby. Widowmaker found herself surprisingly frustrated with the woman. The one time she needed Tracer to trust her, and she wouldn’t.

Admittedly, she’d not given her much reason to. But Tracer had tried so much, so annoyingly, to get into this position where she could help and save Widowmaker. Now that she had the chance, she balked. Widowmaker huffed under her breath in frustration at not being believed when she was finally speaking the truth. She’d left the passengers on the train alive, if unconscious. Except for the one man she had killed, that was.

He’d been a Talon agent tailing Tracer, but Widowmaker wasn’t sure that would make much difference. If she admitted to killing the one, then what proof was there she didn’t kill the others? That chafed a bit. Tracer had undoubtedly killed her share of Talon agents, most of which were just men and women who had no other options. Widowmaker killing one would be proof of her guilt of worse things.

She lay down, using the duffle bag as a pillow. If Tracer was going to hover around like this, then she could have first watch and Widowmaker could sleep a bit. She wasn’t sure if she trusted Tracer to keep watch, but she was better than nothing. Well, Widowmaker hoped she was better.

Widowmaker closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come right away. She lay still, breathing slowly, hoping to coax herself into it. Her body was sore and tired from the long hike, but even that didn’t help. And it only got worse when Tracer started talking.

“I don’t really know what I expected,” she said. Her voice was low, rough, and despondent. “I didn’t want to think that everyone else was right. I didn’t want to think you were really lost to us all. They warned me that this was stupid and I shouldn’t try. I just laughed it off because you had to be there… right, Amélie?”

Widowmaker didn’t know if Tracer was actually asking her or not, but she stayed silent anyway. She hoped if she didn’t acknowledge her, that maybe Tracer would be quiet and let her sleep. They both needed it. Widowmaker didn’t think Tracer would stop following her, so at the very least, she was not make herself a liability while doing it.

“I got what I wanted,” Tracer continued, dashing Widowmaker’s hopes. “I’m here with you. Away from Talon. I don’t know what to do now. I just wanted Amélie back. I just wanted the woman I loved. But I’m not sure she’s there anymore and I don’t know what to do.”

“Go to sleep,” Widowmaker said tiredly. She smiled at the sound of Tracer jumping in surprise.

“I thought you were asleep.”

Widowmaker sighed. “Who can sleep with you chattering away?”

Tracer at least had the decency to look embarrassed. “I’m sorry, Amélie.”

“You can babble at me in the morning,” Widowmaker said, rolling onto her side so her back was to Tracer.

Tracer didn’t respond, but Widowmaker could hear her moving followed by a light thump as she settled on the ground. She was closer now, not quite touching Widowmaker, but close enough that Widowmaker could feel her presence. Widowmaker rolled her eyes behind closed lids. Apparently Tracer still trusted her enough to sleep next to her. So long as she stayed quiet, it didn’t matter. They could sleep, and with luck, Tracer would forget and not bother with her continued questioning in the morning.

 

Widowmaker was not that lucky. As the pair woke and ate their breakfast in silence, she held out hope that she might escape the conversation. Wrappers crinkled and birds chirped, but there were no words, and Widowmaker soaked it in. She was used to solitude and her own thoughts more than conversation. Tracer’s words often felt like a jagged bit of glass cutting through her, setting her teeth on edge.

“Amélie, I’m sorry,” Tracer said as she picked up the duffel bag. It seemed she had decided to stay and follow. “I want to trust you, but this is harder than I thought it would be.”

Widowmaker snorted derisively, letting Tracer know exactly what she thought of that. There was a throbbing pain low in the back of her head and she wasn’t sure if it was from lack of sleep, general annoyance, or because of her conditioning wearing down. She rubbed her fingers against the base of her skull.

“Hard for you?” Widowmaker asked as she started off through the woods. “If you had just left well enough alone, I would not be stuck in the woods, being hunted by my employers.”

“And you could have just not attacked my train!” Tracer spat back at her.

“Would you have stopped following me? Interfering?”

Interfering?” Tracer said with a scoff. “Stopping you from hurting innocent people is interfering?”

“That isn’t what you were doing,” Widowmaker said dismissively.

“Saving you isn’t either!”

“You have done a wonderful job saving me. I have never felt safer,” Widowmaker said dryly.

“Damn it, Amélie, you can’t pin this entire thing–” Tracer started, but broke off abruptly. “Something’s wrong.”

Widowmaker slowed, turning to continue the argument before she realized Tracer was right. Her teeth clicked lightly as she shut her mouth. They stood, staring at each other before they realized what was different. There was no sound. No birds, no rustle of animals, no chirp of insects. But then that wasn’t exactly right either. It _wasn’t_ silent, but the sound was so low and deep that she could feel it more than hear it.

“An engine,” Widowmaker said.

“Are you sure? I’ve never heard or felt anything like that.”

Widowmaker unslung her rifle from over her shoulder and crouched down as she walked forward. Tracer followed, quieter than Widowmaker would have thought possible for the woman. The thrumming sound grew more intense as they went until it became almost a rattle in their bones and teeth.

“I am sure,” Widowmaker said as they walked. “It is something Talon likes to do. Their planes are designed to make that sound when they idle. It is a way to unsettle targets, to make them unfocused and easier to pick off. See?”

Widowmaker pointed as the trees around them thinned. In a clearing, too close for comfort, was the plane they had seen earlier. It was a small scout craft, sleek and menacing. The angles around the nose made it look almost animalistic. Eight guards stood around it, waiting and looking bored. None of them had their weapons raised or were scanning the forest, instead talking and leaning against the side of the plane

“Shit,” Tracer muttered. “Can we go around them?”

“Yes. They don’t know we are here,” Widowmaker said as she peered around a tree trunk. “But I have an idea.”

“You want their plane, don’t you?”

Widowmaker blinked and looked over at Tracer. “How did you know that?”

“I had the same idea,” Tracer said, a sly smile on her lips. “I just didn’t think you’d go for it.”

Widowmaker let out a soft chuckle. She reached over and yanked the duffle bag off Tracer’s shoulder, opened it, and pulled out her visor. She strapped it on, the weight of it on her head an almost comforting familiarity. She touched the button on her temple and it closed over her eyes. It was dark for a moment before the cameras all turned on, increasing her field of vision substantially.

“Now, let me see what we have here,” she said.

Her thermal sensors turned on, though they were of limited help. With the plane still running, it was pumping massive amounts of heat into the clearing. Still, she could just barely make out the two people still sitting in the aircraft.

“One pilot still inside,” Widowmaker said. “Do you think you can get around and into the plane?”

“Yeah, easy,” Tracer said. “Though it’d be easier if you did a little distracting.”

Widowmaker chuckled as she tapped the button on her visor again. The front panel split and slid away to reveal her eyes again. “Do not worry, souris. By the time you finish with those two, I will have cleared the field and made myself a drink.”

Tracer snorted derisively as she awkwardly moved away, half bent over and pistols in hand. Widowmaker watched, amused. It was interesting how quickly the woman could be distracted. Talon was a rather large and immediate distraction, but it seemed as if once Tracer had something else to sink her teeth into, she took it. Widowmaker wondered if she could exploit that.

She closed the bag, strapped it across her back and brought her rifle up to knock against her shoulder. She slowed her breathing and listened to the beat of her heart. It was slower than natural, one of the many things Talon had done to her to make her a better sniper. One of the things that made her less than eager to let them back into her head.

A streak of blue appeared on the edge of the clearing, announcing Tracer’s entrance. She blinked her way across the grass, visible for only a moment before vanishing again. Her speed was different with each jump, making it nearly impossible to predict where she would be each time she reappeared.

“Ah, chérie, this is what makes you such fun prey,” Widowmaker said softly to herself, her tone wistful.

Widowmaker watched as Tracer approached the plane. The door was open and no one was looking in her direction, making it an easy path for her. Widowmaker took aim and fired. Her rifle cracked loudly in the silence of the forest and the figure farthest away from Tracer fell in a shower of glittering red. The person next to him collapsed a heartbeat later. The six that remained recovered quickly and turned their weapons to point in her direction. Two shots were more than enough to figure out where she was at this range.

They opened fire, automatic weapons roaring loudly and shredding the underbrush with bullets. Widowmaker was already moving, her body hunched over to keep herself concealed. The duffle bag thumped unpleasantly against her back, jabbing into her muscles. She was used to being unencumbered, free to move across buildings and through rooms. She couldn’t remember the last time she had to do this out in the wilderness.

When she was far enough from her original spot, Widowmaker slid to a halt in the leaves and pulled her rifle back up quickly. Her heart was beating faster from the run and she gulped down air to try and calm herself. It worked, but slower than she wanted. She was too close; she hated being this close to her targets. She looked through her scope. The figures had stopped firing, looking around for her instead. One of them pointed toward where she was hiding.

There was a flash of blue and Tracer appeared, crashing herself against one of the Talon guards. They both collapsed to the ground before Tracer vanished, leaving the other five to scan for her frantically. That made them much easier targets. Two more went down, one to Widowmaker and another to Tracer. They had completely stopped looking for Widowmaker, focused entirely on the flickering ghost of a woman who kept appearing impossibly among them. They fired almost at random to try to hit her. Widowmaker chuckled. She almost felt pity for them. How does someone train to fight a woman not bound by time and space? She fired twice more and it was done.

 

Lena watched as Amélie walked out from between the trees and over to her. She tried to smile but she was exhausted. The last few days had taken more of a toll on her than she thought they had. Amélie would never know, but Lena had taken a bullet to the leg and been struck twice during the fight outside the plane.

She had rewound her own time to before she was injured each time, but she could still feel the injuries like distant echoes. She could feel herself getting weaker when she rewound, tired and unable to completely ignore her injuries. It was making her a little nervous.

“Well done,” Amélie said. She nudged one of the guards with the toe of her boot. “The pilot was no trouble?”

Lena shook her head silently. She was worried if she tried to speak that she would give away just how much it had taken out of her. Amélie simply nodded and walked onto the plane, returning a moment later with the pilot. She dragged his inert body behind her and shoved him out with the others. Lena hadn’t killed him. She hadn’t killed anyone she attacked or, at least, she tried not to.

“Come on, then,” Amélie said as she walked back inside. “They will know what we’ve done soon.”

Lena glanced at the people laying around her on the ground. The ones Amélie had shot were dead, there was no denying that. The ones she attacked were still breathing, she hoped. She wondered if Talon would come rescue them. She always felt slightly conflicted. They were people just like anyone else, but they would also not hesitate to kill her if they got the chance.

“Tracer! Hurry up.”

Lena started in surprise, snapped out of her thoughts by Amélie’s shout. She climbed onto the small transport plane, hitting the button to close the doors as she walked to the cockpit. Amélie was already seated in the co-pilot’s chair.

“I am hoping you can fly this, or our plan will have been a waste,” Amélie said with a small frown.

“Well, it’s been awhile since I had to fly some random plane I found in the middle of the woods,” Tracer said cheerfully. “But I’m sure I can get it. Probably.”

Amelie glared at her in frustration, but Lena just laughed it off. The controls were sprawled out in front of Lena as she sat down in the pilot’s seat. was like falling down a flight of stairs: nerve wracking at first and then easy once you got going. And then you maybe died at the end. Lena decided not to share this particular metaphor.

“Yeah, I can fly it,” Lena said more seriously, hands moving to the controls. “Where are we going?”

“Get us out of here first,” Amélie said as she began to flick through display screens on her side. She tapped a few keys and a buzzer sounded.

“What was that?”

“I turned off the tracker,” Amélie explained. “We’ll have to stop somewhere and remove it completely if we want to be safe.”

“I know a place,” Lena said.

A sudden pang of nerves and worry cut through her chest. This was a bad idea and she knew it. A very bad idea. She put her hands on the controls and took a deep breath to calm herself. The plane jerked as it lifted off the ground, moving awkwardly as she tried to get used to the controls. When they were above the trees, she turned the plane south, and switched the thrusters from takeoff to flight. With a dull growl, the plane shot forward and upward.

“Well done, souris,” Amélie said, watching the forest shrink beneath them. “All of my safe places will be compromised, so I will let you choose where we go.”

Lena sighed and nodded. She knew where to go. Winston was going to kill her.


	8. Chapter 8

“You’re doing _what_?”

Lena grimaced and pulled the phone away from her face. Winston often forgot just how loud he could be when he shouted. She sighed and didn’t answer right away, spinning herself slowly on her heel before pacing back toward the airplane. She kicked a pebble and sent it clattering across the cracked asphalt.

“I’m taking Amélie to Gibraltar,” she finally said.

It was Winston’s turn to be silent, though she could hear him breathing on the other end of the connection. Lena waited for him, watching the dark shadow of Amélie move beneath the plane. Lena could hear the clank of metal against metal as Amélie worked.

They had flown south a ways before doubling back northwest, heading toward the border of Switzerland. Amélie was sure they couldn’t be tracked with the system turned off, but neither of them wanted to take the chance. They found an abandoned airstrip, an old relic from even before the Omnic Crisis that was more forest than pavement now, and waited.

When no Talon craft appeared in the sky to attack them, they managed an uneasy rest for a few hours. After that, they finally relaxed. They ate and discussed their plans, then slept again, catching up on the missing hours from the past few days. Lena found herself able to properly rest for the first time since she started this stupid mission of hers. She sank into the cushioned pilot’s seat while Amélie stretched out on the bench in the back. Then Amélie got to work.

“Look, Winston,” she said, breaking the silence. “I’m coming to Gibraltar with Amélie, whether you’re there or not. She’s in danger. I’m in danger! I just need a little help. And I think you can give it.”

Winston sighed heavily. “Fine. I’ll meet you there. I was on my way back anyway.”

“Oh, one last thing. We’re in a Talon plane, so try not to shoot us out of the sky?”

“I’ll do my best.”

She hung up, tucking the phone into her pocket. It was nice not to have to destroy this one right away, though she imagined she would have to soon. She walked back to the plane to find Amélie standing with a small metal box in her hands. She was sweating despite the chill of the day, wearing clothing she had scrounged from inside the ship. The white tank top stood out against her pale bluish-lavender skin and exposed a fair amount of it. Lena struggled to keep her gaze off her muscular arms.

“That it?” Lena asked.

Amélie tossed the electronic object between her grease covered hands. “It is. I feel a bit safer with it out of the ship,” she said before turning away.

With a grunt of effort, she lobbed the box as far out across the pavement as she could. It smashed down with a crack and fractured into several pieces, metal ringing out as it scattered. Lena nodded in approval.

“Nice throw. Got a decent arm on you.”

Amélie smiled lightly, looking down at Lena. She had a smear of grease on her cheek where she had wiped away the sweat without thinking. Lena’s hand twitched as she restrained herself from reaching up to try and clean it off. She was staring, she knew it, but it was difficult to pull her gaze away. Amélie as Widowmaker had always been so intimidating. As she was now, dressed casually and sweating and dirty with her long hair coming loose from its ties, she looked so much like Lena remembered her. If it wasn’t for the blue skin and yellow eyes, she would be the woman Lena fell in love with.

“We should get moving,” Amélie commented. She side-eyed Lena with an amused smirk as she walked back toward the plane.

Lena followed behind after a moment. She watched Amélie, watched the way she moved as she walked. Her limbs were loose, arms swinging, shoulders slumped slightly. When something moved in the woods around them, she looked over slowly and calmly. The chance to relax had seemingly melted away the stress and tautness that had been plaguing her. There was no frantic tenseness in her muscles or movements.

It wasn’t the same for Lena. She had appreciated the chance to finally sleep and recover properly, especially as it finally banished the lingering effects from her odd, out-of-body experience. But it had given her more and more time to think. Laying in the relative quiet of the aircraft, listening to Amélie sleeping nearby, Lena felt her thoughts drifting to things she didn’t want to deal with.

She was finding it hard to reconcile the Amélie she was seeing now with the Widowmaker that tried to rip off her chronal accelerator. She was still cool and standoffish. The few moments of friendliness or warmth she got usually ended abruptly, and then Amélie would spend the rest of the day in silence. But it was still a far cry from the woman who broke onto a train to kidnap Lena.

Inside the plane, Amélie was already starting preparations for takeoff. Lena had been teaching her bits as they went, just in case something happened and she needed to fly. It was better to be safe that way. Lena slapped the button for the door and it closed with a whine behind her as she walked to the cockpit. Strapping herself in, she let Amélie finish the proper commands before taking over on the controls.

The craft rumbled around them, the engines roaring and rattling. Lena wasn’t very impressed with the plane. It worked, it got them where they needed to go, and the reactor was efficient enough, if underpowered. But the rest of the thing seemed like it had been slapped together from random parts.

It wasn’t just Lena’s experience and past with far better craft that was coloring her perception, either. There were gaps in places there shouldn’t be, visible wires, systems poorly laid out. But there were also dozens upon dozens of these planes, and Lena suspected they were nice and cheap. It was almost enough for Lena to grudgingly respect Talon’s ingenuity and ability to work with so little. Almost.

“What did he think of your idea?” Amélie asked once they were in the air.

Lena let out a short laugh. “Well, he wasn’t happy, for sure. Especially since I wouldn’t tell him everything,” she said as she activated the autopilot.

“Why not?”

“There are some things I think will be easier in person,” Lena said after a moment’s hesitation.

Amélie noticed the pause, raising a brow. “Perhaps there are things it is best not to share at all.”

Lena frowned, glancing away from Amélie. “I don’t know about that.”

“Do you really think he can help?” Amélie asked as she undid her harness and stood from the co-pilot’s chair.

“If anyone can, it’s Winston. He’s the one who saved me from being… well, a forgotten ghost. I think he can undo what they did to you.”

“Perhaps. If he can simply mitigate it, that would be best. I imagine you will insist he try and repair me, to bring back your precious Amélie,” she said from behind Lena. “I am going to clean up and rest. Tearing out the tracking beacon was more work than I expected.”

Lena sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. Her precious Amélie. She couldn’t even deny it. She wanted Amélie back, her Amélie. She wanted Winston to be able to undo everything, to turn her back into the sweet, lovely woman Lena remembered. Amélie herself seemed to simply want any side effects of her brainwashing to be removed and then to continue her life as Widowmaker.

She knew she couldn’t force Amélie to become something she didn’t want. Wasn’t that what Talon did to her to begin with? If she didn’t want to try to reclaim that past, Lena had no place to tell her she must. But it was still difficult. Lena hoped, even when she knew she shouldn’t, that she could convince Amélie that it would be for the best when that time came.

Lena’s worst moments were when she was alone with her thoughts. Amélie may not have been a shining conversationalist, but at least she was someone to talk with. When she was asleep or not speaking, the silence was too much for Lena to bear. Her hand crept up to clutch at her accelerator, fingers running along the ridged edge of it where Amélie had tried to yank it off her chest. The same Amélie she could hear falling asleep behind her.

Not for the first time, Lena wondered if she was crazy for doing this. Not for the first time, the voice that said this was a bad idea became louder. Now that she had escaped Talon, now that she didn’t need Amélie’s help, why didn’t she simply leave her? There were places she could go for help, and Amélie didn’t seem to need her help either. Could she actually bring herself to abandon Amélie like that, though?

Lena shook her head to try to clear away those intrusive thoughts. She had worked so hard to find Amélie, to help her. Now she had the chance and she wanted to give up? Lena sighed again and slumped into her chair. That wasn’t how she worked, she reminded herself. She would stand until the end, help as much as she could. Amélie had hurt her, it was true, but she had still been under the effects of the brainwashing. It had made her unpredictable. As it faded, she had become more stable and calmer, even nicer. She smiled more, genuine smiles of pleasure. Once, she even laughed at Lena’s joke.

As the plane rumbled across the sky, Lena held onto those thoughts. She ignored the ones that said she was wrong, pushing back against the nagging uncertainty. It was too late for that, anyway. She couldn’t give up after so much work. She wouldn’t let herself.

 

Winston was waiting for them when the plane landed that night. He was also armed with his tesla cannon, Lena noted with a frown. As the plane’s engines powered down, she opened the door and walked out to greet him, putting on her biggest smile.

“Winston! Love, it’s great to see you again,” she said as she sauntered up.

Winston looked at her over the rims of his glasses. “Where is she? Is she armed?”

“I am here. You can speak directly to me, you know,” Amélie said from where she stood on the plane, looking out at the other two.

“Leave any weapons you have on the plane,” Winston called in his booming voice. He put one hand on Lena’s shoulder and pushed her to the side. “I don’t want any surprises. Lena may trust you, but you’re still Talon in my eyes.”

“Of course,” Amélie said with a smile. She held her hands up in the air for Winston to see as she walked off the aircraft. “I would not wish to offend my gracious host.”

Winston snorted derisively and motioned with his weapon toward the building behind him. Amélie walked past the two, into the floodlights that were aimed at the small landing pad. Under Winston’s guidance, Lena had landed at the smaller, out-of-the-way pad instead of the main one to keep the plane hidden. They turned and followed Amélie, Winston directing her inside and through the dark hallways.

“You should hire a maid, Winston,” Amélie said, glancing around. “You have let this place go.”

“Yes, yes. Very clever. Keep walking,” he grunted. “I don’t need lecturing from a Talon agent.”

“A sore spot?” Amelie said with a smirk.

“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Winston said darkly. “You and Talon are the reason Overwatch is gone, so I don’t really appreciate your snide comments.”

“Hmph. You pass your own blame off onto others,” Amélie said dismissively. “Overwatch fell because of itself. Talon does not get or deserve the credit for that.”

“Enough, you two,” Lena said in exasperation. “We came here to try to get help, Amélie, not insult Winston.”

“Very well. My apologies, Winston,” Amélie said, glancing back and bowing her head minutely. “So where will you be locking me up?”

Winston pointed forward with his cannon. “Just up there.”

“Wait, wait. Locking her up?” Lena said. The other two began down the hall again and Lena slipped in front of Winston, walking backwards. “She’s here to get help, you can’t lock her up!”

“She’s an enemy agent, Lena. I don’t know what happened out there to make you forget that, but it isn’t safe to simply leave her free,” Winston said, not taking his eyes off Amélie’s back.

“But--”

“Enough, souris,” Amélie said, her voice soft. “I would do the same.”

Lena sighed but didn’t press the issue anymore. She slowed, letting Winston by her so that she trailed at the back of the line. The room Winston had meant was an old cell, back from the late days of Overwatch. They had originally not been in the habit of detaining people themselves, but times had changed by then. It had been a bad sign, though not many people thought much of it at the time.

Winston had apparently cleaned up and furnished the room while waiting for them to arrive. It was a simple square room with concrete walls, a steel door, and a small window of bullet-proof glass. There was a bed, a light embedded in the ceiling, and a metal toilet with what looked like a shower curtain in front of it. Lena didn’t remember them having those, but Winston had apparently set it up. Even with someone he considered a dangerous criminal, not being polite was a struggle.

Amélie walked inside and sat down on the edge of the bed. She folded her hands in her lap and stared ahead at the wall. She did it so automatically that it sent a shiver down Lena’s spine. It was as if she was used to this sort of thing, maybe even conditioned to it.

“I’ll bring you food later,” Winston said before he shut the door. He locked it with a heavy _thunk_ before turning to Lena. “I think we need to talk.”

With a resigned slump in her shoulders, Lena followed him back the way they had come. They made their way to the cafeteria where only one table remained. Winston went to a closet, having apparently stored all the unneeded chairs there, and dragged one out for her. He sat on the floor, resting his cannon nearby. He took his glasses off, cleaning them with a cloth from his pocket.

“What the hell happened, Lena?” he said finally.

Lena ran her hand through her hair. She’d been so long without a bath or basic amenities that it drooped limply rather than staying in its normal, messy spikes. She took a deep breath and began to talk. And talk.

Winston sat quietly, patiently and politely listening. As she went on, she could see him getting more and more agitated. When she told him about the cabin, his eyes went wide and he started to speak, but she simply continued over him. He got the hint and silenced himself, plucking his glasses off his face to rub at his eyes. When she finally finished, he remained seated as he tried to take it all in.

“She tried to kill you, Lena.”

“Well, that’s not new, is it?” She tried to smile, but it faltered, and she looked down at the table.

“This was different. This was personal,” Winston said quietly. He reached a large hand across the table and laid it across her arm. “I know you’ve been through a lot, but I don’t think you should trust her at all. This could all be a trick.”

“I know everything you’re thinking, love,” Lena answered as she took hold of Winston’s hand with both of hers. “I’ve thought through all of them myself. But you weren’t there. You didn’t see the way she reacted. There was real fear.”

“Maybe, but she could simply be a very good actor.”

“And she’s been changing. I thought at first it was an act, but it’s too erratic and small for me to think she’s putting it on,” Lena said, trying to keep the pleading tone from her voice. “And she killed those agents.”

“Talon has never been very kind to its own rank and file, Lena.”

“Please just talk to her, Winston. For me.”

Winston sighed heavily before nodding. He would talk to her. For Lena. And even if Amélie was lying through her teeth, perhaps he could manage to get some sort of information out of her.

 

Winston opened the door to Amélie’s room, a tray of food balanced on one hand. There was a slot on the door for this sort of thing, but he didn’t think he had much to worry about. Humans, especially unarmed ones, didn’t pose much of a threat. That was a benefit to being a massive gorilla.

“Here. Lena says you’ve eaten mostly trail rations since you tried to kill her,” he said, not at all trying to disguise the bitterness in his voice.

Amélie simply smiled and reached over to take the tray. “Merci.”

Winston stood in the doorway, silent and watching her. Amelie looked back at him as she began to pick at her food. Her brows lifted inquisitively and a smirk formed on her lips when he glanced away. He let out a low huffing breath and set his shoulders.

“Was there something else, Winston?” Amelie asked, not bothering to hide the amusement in her voice.

“Why I should trust you, Widowmaker?” he asked, dragging his gaze back up to her.

“That is simple,” she said. “You should not.”

Winston scowled at her, waiting for her to continue. She sipped from her plastic cup of water before setting her tray beside her on the bed. Shifting in her seat, she turned to face him more fully.

“You are not a fool, I know. There is nothing I can say to you that will suddenly make you trust me,” she explained. She laced her hands in her lap, thumbs rubbing slowly against each other. “You are not Tracer. You will not be so easily swayed.”

“So you are here to do something? You are still with Talon?”

“Not at all. But that does not mean you should trust someone who has tried to kill you. I do not trust you, nor Tracer,” she continued with a shrug. “Perhaps in time, understandings can be made, but now? I do not think so.”

“So then why are you here?” Winston persisted.

“Because Lena wished for me to come here, I suppose. That is an odd thing to say since I did not think I would ever willingly go anywhere with the woman. But she insisted that I would be safe here.”

Winston sat down, his huge bulk blocking the doorway. “Is Talon really after you? Trying to kill you?”

“I doubt they will kill me unless necessary. They wish to, ah, reprogram me. To put me back how I was.”

“You don’t want that?”

“No, I do not. It is a torture they have inflicted on me repeatedly.”

“Why did you stay with them?”

Amélie chuckled. “Leaving is difficult to do when you are conditioned not to. They simply tried to keep that from happening. This time they failed because I was... well, because I was trying to kill Tracer.”

“So you weren’t under their control when you did that?” Winston asked, hands curling into fists.

“Not entirely. It is difficult to explain.”

“Try.”

“It was like being two completely different people and warring for control of myself. Tracer presented herself as a target, something I latched onto. Something I hoped would fix things.”

“That’s not a very good explanation.”

Amélie sighed softly and shook her head. “No, I am afraid it is not.”

“I see no reason to help you. You’re dangerous, you’ve tried to kill my closest friend, you’ve killed many, many innocent people. But if what Lena says is right, you don’t believe yourself to be Amélie anymore. You don’t want to be Amélie again. You wish to remain this Widowmaker they made you into.”

Amélie stood suddenly and Winston tensed, but she didn’t move toward him. “Would you want to go back? To be shoved back into the ruins of a life that you have forgotten? To be forced back into pain and misery instead of being allowed to move on and live as you can?”

Winston grimaced. “No, I suppose not. But you are a killer, a dangerous woman. How can we just leave you like that and let you off into the world? We’d be condemning people to death.”

“You think I will simply go off and start murdering? Why?”

“Because that is what you have done! There is nothing to tell us that you will simply go into hiding and live a normal life.”

Amélie shifted from foot to foot. She was searching for words, some explanation; Winston could see the struggle in her face. She was worried and frustrated, emotions he hadn’t expected at all from her.

“I could stay with Lena. She could be my keeper.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said, shaking his head. “I will think over this tonight, but I don’t know what we can do for you.”

“Wait, Winston.”

He looked at her curiously. Something in the way she said his name made him pause.

“What is it?”

She stepped closer to him, slowly so as not to surprise him. A stride away, she stopped and knelt so that she looked up at him. Winston frowned and reached up to adjust his glasses.

“I have not told Tracer this,” she said softly. There was a roughness to her voice when she spoke, the coarseness of restrained emotion. “And I ask you not to. But I think what they did to me will kill me if it is left alone.”

“What?” he said in genuine confusion. “But it hasn’t yet.”

“They refresh it, I suppose. Every time they do what they did to me. They warned me, but I never thought about it. Headaches, tremors, sickness, fatigue. Slow and steady, until one day I simply collapse.”

“Why are you telling me? Why didn’t you tell Lena?”

“She would have reacted poorly. I did not need her to,” Amélie said. “I… I do not want to die, Winston.”

He stared at her for a long moment before turning his gaze away. Finally, he stood and backed himself out of the room, still unwilling to turn his back to her. She stayed where she was, watching him.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “I think we can run some scans.”

She smiled, but he closed the door before she could say anything. He bolted the door shut again and sighed, wondering what in the world he was thinking. Maybe Amélie was wrong. Maybe he was a fool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I believe this is roughly the end of part 1, for anyone curious. Thank you for reading this far and I hope the next part is as enjoyable for everyone.


	9. Chapter 9

“You know, I built this to keep you tethered to the present,” Winston said, looking through his magnifier at the chronal accelerator.

“But I use it for the exact opposite,” Lena said. She rolled her eyes but otherwise sat motionless on the examination table. “Yeah, yeah, I know the routine, Winston.”

Winston sighed before going quiet as he inspected her accelerator. He poked and prodded at it, making adjustments. Lena did her best to stay still, but every turn of a screw or resoldering of a connection sent tremors through her body. They weren’t entirely physical sensations, but the only way she could describe it was as if she were being re-aligned. When Winston stepped back, Lena sighed in relief. She felt normal again.

“Better?” he asked.

Lena nodded and flashed a smile. “Loads, big guy. Thanks.”

Winston grunted his reply before walking across the lab, fists thumping heavily on the ground. He began rummaging across one of his tables. It was covered in tools, spare parts, half finished projects, and numerous peanut butter jars.

“You’re eating too much peanut butter again,” Lena chided. She hopped off the table and walked over to Winston. “What would Angela say?”

“She’d sigh and say we talked about this and I promised to do better and so on,” Winston said in exasperation, rolling his eyes. “Believe me, I have it memorized.”

Lena picked up one of the jars, spinning it on her fingertip. “If you memorized it, feels like you should follow it then.”

“I do my best, Lena. And maybe you could follow your own advice there,” he said, reaching over and snatching the jar from her hand before she could drop it on something important. “I’ve been working on an upgrade for your chronal accelerator, so I’m glad you’re around. It’ll be easier to test.”

Lena perked up at that, moving around the table to stand next to him. “Oh? What sorta upgrade?”

“I know you have issues living a normal life with it, so I’ve been working on this,” Winston said. He held up a small electronic device between his large fingers. “When it’s installed, it should project a stabilization field within a small radius around it. That way you can take the harness off.”

For once, Lena was speechless. She stood and stared at the small, unassuming device with her mouth slightly open. She blinked away tears that stung the corners of her eyes and threw her arms around Winston. She clung tightly, kissing his fur repeatedly. Winston awkwardly patted her on the back until she finally drew away from him.

“That’s incredible, Winston,” Lena said when she found the words. “That’s the best gift I’ve gotten since you saved me. Thank you.”

“Yes, well, you’re my friend,” Winston said as he set down the electronic bit. “That’s what friends do.”

“How heartwarming,” came Amélie’s voice as she strode into the room. She looked over the two, expression neutral. “I did not expect such emotion today.”

Winston huffed out an annoyed breath. “Glad to see you could make it. There’s a lot of tests to run, so let’s get started.”

Amélie shot a glance at Lena. “You can go now.”

“What? Wait, no,” Lena blurted in surprise.

“No, I may need her help,” Winston said.

Amélie stared at him, eyes narrowed accusatorily. Winston looked back at her calmly until she finally looked away, exhaling sharply through her nose. He motioned for her to follow him as he walked to the other side of his lab. Amélie followed, Lena trailing behind her uncertainly, not wanting to risk her ire. 

“Lay down on this,” Winston said, pointing to an examination bed. Hanging over it was an elaborate contraption of lights and panels.

Amélie looked uncertain about it. “What is this?”

“It’s a scanner. It scans things,” Winston said as he began to work at a nearby console. “In this case, it will scan your body, brain included. I’m not a doctor, but I know a bit. Plus, Athena can help. Right?”

“I was beginning to think you had forgotten me,” Athena said, the disembodied voice of Winston’s AI assistant sounding around them.

“My apologies. New guests and busy work. You know how it is,” Winston said.

“Of course,” Athena said evenly. “Hello, Lena. It is good to have you back. You as well, Amélie, though I wish the circumstances were better.”

“Hiya, Athena. It’s nice to be back,” Lena said brightly.

Amélie said nothing, frowning as she sat on the table. She stretched out along it, arms at her sides, her head beneath the troubling contraption. She stared up at it as she waited. Lena watched her curiously, noting the way her fingers clenched at her pants. Lena walked around to the head of the table and leaned down.

“It’s gonna be fine,” she whispered. “We’ll find out what’s wrong and fix you up and everything’ll be great, just you see.”

Amélie opened her mouth to reply but visibly thought better of her, her face scrunching up. Instead, she sighed and closed her eyes, body relaxing. Her fingers stopped pulling at the sides of her pants.

“Yes, I know,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Thank you. Lena.”

Lena blinked in surprise before smiling. She gave Amélie a light pat on the shoulder before she stepped away, waiting for Winston to finish his preparations. He hit a button, the scanner coming to life with a low hum and lowering down over Amélie. She opened her eyes, staring up at it.

“Hold still,” Winston told her, unnecessarily.

Amélie lay on the table, rigid as steel. Lights glowed in the medical scanner as it circled slowly and traveled down Amélie’s body from head to toe and back up. On the screens near Winston, various internal cross sections of Amélie’s body began to appear. He shunted some off to the side, fingers moving across the screen, and brought the scans of her head into focus.

“We’ll check the other scans later, Athena. For now, we need to figure out what they did in her head,” Winston said.

“Understood,” Athena said in her calm tone. “Cross referencing against available data.”

Amélie slowly sat up on the table and Lena stepped forward, offering a hand to help her down. Amélie hesitated before accepting, slipping her cooler hand into Lena’s and sliding off the table. Lena beamed up at her happily, Amélie looking back at her uncertainly until she let go of Lena’s hand. She turned to watch Winston, waiting for his results.

“Winston?” Athena said, hesitation in her voice.

“What is it?” Winston asked, looking up from his console.

“I am sorry to say this, but these scans are like nothing I can find,” Athena said, sounding distressed. “Maybe if we had a doctor, they could interpret it better, but even then I am unsure. What they did to Amélie is unknown.”

Amélie deflated, her shoulders slumping and her head bowing. Lena reached over, touching her arm, but Amélie shook her off. She turned and stormed out of the lab, her fists clenched tightly at her sides. Lena watched her go before she walked over to Winston.

“There’s nothing we can do?” she asked.

Winston rubbed a hand over his face as he thought. “Athena, what if we had the device they used on her?”

“Hm. It’s possible,” Athena mused. “Depending on how complex the device and procedure are.”

“So that’s it, then? We have to go steal one of these brainwashing devices?” Lena asked, bemused.

“Well, it’s a lot more complex than just breaking into a store to steal something,” Winston said. “We have to find out where it is, which is likely to be a Talon base. Then we have to break into a Talon base and make it out. Even then, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to reverse engineer it.”

“That’s a better shot than nothing at all,” Lena said. She glanced back the way Amélie had left. “Besides, we have someone who might know where to find one of these things.”

“Let’s be honest here, Lena. You’re talking about risking your life for a woman who has repeatedly tried to kill you,” Winston reminded her.

“She used to be our friend, Winston,” Lena said, poking him in the chest. “We couldn’t save her last time, we have to save her this time. We have to free her for good.”

“Free her? Yes, free her,” Winston said, looking away from Lena. He began adjusting the scans on the screens in front of him. “I won’t be able to stop you even if I don’t agree, will I?”

“Probably not,” Lena conceded. “But it’d be nice to have your support, big guy.”

“Go talk to her, then. I have to look over the rest of this, to make sure she’s healthy,” Winston said with a sigh. “If she agrees, then we can discuss the possibility.”

Lena gave him a pat on the shoulder before she turned to follow Amélie. It took her some time, wandering through the maze of halls and unused rooms. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of regret as she made her way through the compound. Memories came back to her, vivid as if she had just lived them a day ago. She saw her old friends walking the halls. She heard laughter, voices of the dead and forgotten. She remembered loud dinners in the mess hall and quiet ones in quarters with someone special. A face came back to her, the sweet redheaded engineer she’d had a thing for before Amélie came into her life.

“Damn it,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. “Don’t need this, don’t want this.”

She turned a corner, picking up her pace down the hall. Shoving open the door at the end, she blinked against the bright sunlight as she found herself outside. She was on a catwalk even though she didn’t remember going up any stairs. She shook her head, inhaling the smell of the sea and realizing she wasn’t alone. At the far end from her, Amélie leaned against the railing. She stared down at the cliffside and the ocean below.

“Amélie?” Lena asked tentatively as she drew closer.

“I should have known,” Amélie said without looking up. “I let myself believe I could be fixed, that I could get them out of my head. I let you convince me. Your hope and your need to save me, for some reason I let myself think you could.”

“Maybe we still can help you,” Lena said. She tried to sound firm, convinced, but her voice came out small and soft as she edged closer to Amélie.

“No, you do not get to do this again,” Amélie said sharply, turning her head to look at Lena. “I cannot hope uselessly that I will…” There was a pause as Amélie looked back at the sea. “That I will get them out of my head.”

“Winston and Athena think if we can get one of the devices they used, maybe they could figure out what happened to you,” Lena pressed on.

Amélie let out a derisive snort. “Yes, a good idea. Where will we find one?”

“I thought maybe you knew,” Lena said, defeated.

Amélie said nothing, her hands clenched tightly enough on the railing that her knuckles were pale. Lena stood with her, watching the waves, until the chilly morning air began to make her shiver. She scooted closer to Amélie before she remembered the woman gave off no warmth.

“You suck as a heater,” Lena muttered.

Amélie looked at her sharply before her lips twitched. To Lena’s astonishment, Amélie smiled. And then she _laughed._ The hoarse, snorting laugh of someone who didn’t want to but couldn’t help it. Lena burst into a surprised giggle as Amélie’s laughter continued. As she let herself laugh, it turned musical in Lena’s ears, like bells. Letting go of the railing, Amélie brought a hand up to rub at her face, leaning her other forearm on the rail.

“Wasn’t even that funny,” Lena said as their laughter faded.

“No, it wasn’t,” Amélie agreed.

When she dropped her hand from her face, Lena could see she was tired. Her yellow eyes were bloodshot, dark half circles beneath them. Lena looped her arm through Amélie’s and leaned closer against her. Amélie tensed but didn’t draw away from her. They stared out at the ocean, watching dark clouds form along the horizon. Lena lost track of time as they drew closer, rising up in the sky as colossal thunderheads.

“There may be a way,” Amélie said after the first peal of thunder echoed through the compound.

“What?” Lena said, blinking out of the daze she slipped into.

“There may be a way to get the device,” Amélie clarified. “It’s dangerous and stupid, but it could be possible.”

“Well, it certainly wouldn’t be the first dangerous and stupid thing I did,” Lena said with a half smile.

Amélie hummed in thought. “If nothing else, it will be a chance to get back at Talon for what they have done to me.”

“Hey, that’s good enough for me,” Lena said, smile growing.

Lightning slashed through the sky as the rain began to fall. Amélie stepped back from the railing, pulling Lena with her. To Lena’s surprise, she didn’t unhook her arm from around Lena’s. It felt like she tightened her hold. A slightly giddy feeling rose up in Lena’s chest as they walked inside. It was time to plan something dangerous and stupid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I lied. After some adjustment, this is the last chapter in part 1. Which doesn't really mean anything, since I'll keep posting the next part right here.
> 
> Apologies for the long delay on this. It's been a rough few months. I will be doing my best to bring you chapters more regularly and I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part 2: The Dumbest Plan

“Shut the damn alarm off!”

Lena looked frantically at the terminal in front of her. Her fingers moved quickly across the keypads, typing every possible option she could think of. _ERROR_ flashed over and over again in bright red letters as the alarm continued to scream in the compound. Her fingers slipped in panic, mistyping words and having to try them again only to find they didn’t work. She typed in the last word, the last option they had from their stolen list. Lena hit enter and the screen went black. She started to sigh in relief when the word _LOCKED_ was emblazoned on the display.

“Lena! What are you doing?” Amélie shouted over the noise.

“It’s not working! Something’s wrong!”

Amélie glanced back at her briefly before turning her attention back outside the room. She fired a quick burst from her rifle down the hallway leading to them. Lena could barely hear it over the blaring of the alarm. Amélie ducked back inside as a bullet thudded into the concrete wall beside the doorway.

“Figure something out!” Amélie shouted, pointing at the console Lena stood in front of. With that, she turned back around and began to fire down the hall again.

Lena stared at Amélie’s back blankly. Her fingers trembled over the keyboard as an overwhelming sense of desperation crashed into her. The system was locked, there was no way to get into it. Lena stepped back from the console, pulled her pistol from its holster, and unloaded the magazine into the machine in front of her. Sparks erupted out of the multitude of holes she punched into the metal casing and the screen went black. Improbably and mercifully, the screeching alarm died with the terminal.

“Thank God, now we can at least think,” Amélie said, still a bit loudly as she adjusted to the quieter air. She turned to look at Lena over her shoulder and her eyes went huge in shock. “What did you do to the terminal?”

“It wouldn’t shut off! I didn’t know what else to do,” Lena explained, a note of panic creeping into her voice.

“How are we supposed to get into the servers now?” Amélie asked. She reloaded her rifle aggressively, a scowl on her face as she looked at Lena.

Lena winced just a bit at the heavy _ka-chunk_ of the magazine sliding home. “Well, we could just...I uhm--”

“That terminal was the only way, Lena!” Amélie said in exasperation. She turned and began to fire down the hall again, which seemed to calm her down. “We cannot stay here forever. They will have called in more reinforcements from nearby. We need to leave.”

“We can’t just go home with nothing!” Lena argued, looking around the room as if there would be something to take.

“We can and we are going to,” Amélie said, her voice hard.

Lena stared at the other woman’s back, raising her hands and then dropping them usually to her sides. She sighed and scanned the room again. It was small, more a bunker than a room with bare concrete walls that were frigidly cold to the touch. The air was cold too, presumably for the computer system housed here. Aside from the destroyed terminal and a crummy office swivel chair, the only other thing in the room was the thick metal door to the room where the actual servers were. Unable to breach the door, their only option had been to access the data they needed through the terminal. Too bad the passcodes they’d stolen were bogus.

Lena fidgeted, moving over to look at the door again. Behind her, Amélie continued to hold off the remaining Talon agents that were trying to flush them out. Amélie and Lena had the advantage of line of sight as the only path to the room they were in was a long hallway. Unfortunately, that also meant they were trapped for the time being. Lena’s fingers went to her chronal accelerator, rubbing over the ridge that ran along the outside of it.

“I’m gonna blow it up,” she said almost casually.

“You certainly are not!” Amélie said in shock. “The grenades are for when we leave. Besides, you will kill both of us.”

“You don’t know that.” Amélie took the time to glare at Lena over her shoulder. “I do know that. There is nowhere for us to hide from it.”

“You don’t know for certain it’d kill us,” Lena argued. “And we can hide behind the terminal.”

“The one you weakened by filling it with holes?”

“Yeah, that’s the only one here. What else would I be talking about?” Lena shot back.

Amélie rolled her eyes so hard she had to tilt her head back to fully accomplish it. She opened her mouth to argue but stopped, staring at the ceiling just outside the room. A shout and footsteps marking the arrival of more agents snapped her back to reality.

“The vent,” she said as she aimed back down the hall. “There is a vent right outside. It is high up, I did not see it on the way in. It might lead over the other room.”

“Worth a shot!” Lena said brightly.

“Wait,” Amélie said, looking through her scope.

She pulled the trigger twice, the noise of the shots echoing along the concrete hall. Sounds of pain echoed back in response. The coast clear, she turned her attention up toward the ceiling and fired several times. There was the crack of concrete and a moment later, a vent grate crashed to the ground amid a shower of dust. Lena slipped past her into hallway and stared up at the gaping hole above her.

“Well, that’s gonna be a tough one,” she said.

“I will give you a boost. We need to hurry.”

Lena nodded and when Amélie bent down and laced her fingers together, Lena quickly put her foot on them. She grabbed Amélie’s shoulders to balance herself as the taller woman stood back upright. Lena took a deep breath, readying herself as Amélie gave her a quick count to three. She shoved Lena upward as hard as she could, getting her airborne enough for Lena to do the rest. There was a brief flash of blue-white light and Lena was suddenly several feet above where she had been. Her hands made it up through the vent and scrabbled for purchase on the cold metal, just barely finding it on a seam. She grunted and strained upward, pulling herself completely up into the dark shaft.

Her teeth immediately began to chatter. The air wasn’t cold so much as icy, biting sharp at her bare skin. She began to crawl, wriggling almost flat on her stomach in the cramped confines. Her accelerator dragged and scraped on the metal beneath her, snagging on the seams and squealing when it wasn’t. She could hear Amélie dealing with Talon behind her, but she did her best not to focus on that. Or to worry about her. The quicker Lena finished, the quicker they could leave.

Too many minutes passed before she reached what she was after. Peering down through the slits of another grate, she could see the room they needed to be in. She shoved her hand against it, but it didn’t move. She banged her fist as best she could with the limited room for motion and it still didn’t budge. Freezing and desperate, she considered shooting the corners out like Amélie had done but there wasn’t room enough to do that safely or even reach for her gun. Out of options, she reached for her accelerator.

Her fingers found the ridges along the outside and she twisted, pulling free the pulse bomb that charged on her accelerator. It was only for emergencies, but this seemed like one. She set it on the grate and inhaled sharply. There were only a few seconds to get clear, not nearly enough time to wiggle herself backwards. Instead, she felt the bizarre sensation of being pulled out of time, something she couldn’t describe even to herself. Her timeline broke free and she rewound it, feeling everything she had just done but in reverse. Pressure against her skin seemed to be pulled from her, sapped like heat. Her own body heat drew back inside her. Old breath rushed into her lungs so she could expel fresh air. It all happened in a second, but she felt every sensation.

The bomb exploded as Lena found herself hanging out of the vent again, dangling over the hallway. Unfortunately, only her own time reversed, meaning the world had moved on in the same time. Talon agents were taking shots at Amélie, but found a new target suddenly appearing in the open. Hot air and sharp flecks of metal and concrete blew down the shaft toward her, rushing over her hands. Lena struggled to keep their grip as bullets whizzed past her legs. She felt the hot searing pain as one grazed her thigh. She couldn’t rewind again, not right away and not without making things worse right then. That pain and wound were hers permanently.

Before the Talon attackers could hone their aim, she pulled herself back up into the vent. Her leg ached and she could feel the blood running down her skin, but she dragged herself on. The debris scraped at her as she moved over it, jabbing sharply against her stomach. The vent, however, was gone. Lena breathed a sigh of relief and dropped herself down into the server room. She quickly found the panel she needed, jamming in the device Winston had given them. A percentage appeared on it and quickly began to count up. Lena smacked the emergency unlock next to the door, shoving it open so she could look out at Amélie.

“Goddamn, I’m amazing,” she said, grinning from ear to ear.

“Great, you made up for your mistake,” Amélie said over her shoulder. “How long until we leave?”

Lena leaned back inside the server room to check. “A minute. Just a minute more.”

“I think the reinforcements are here,” Amélie said, pulling back inside the room and leaning against the wall. “I can hear them. They know we have to leave, so they are waiting.”

She began to check her weapon, reloading it with the last of her magazines. Lena followed suit, reloading the pistol she had emptied earlier. The seconds dragged on, the pair of them listening to the sounds of the people who were trying to kill them. The device’s display flashed green and Lena pulled it free, handing it to Amélie, who pocketed it.

“I’ll go first, then,” Lena said, moving to the door.

“Yes, lead the charge, souris,” Amélie said with a faint smile. “On three.”

She grabbed one of their grenades and walked over to the server room. Pin pulled, she lobbed it inside and shut the door quickly. Lena led the way out of the room and Amélie shut that door behind them as well. They positioned themselves against the wall and waited, Amélie ticking down the seconds on her fingers. When she hit three, the server room exploded. 

The boom was loud enough that it made Lena’s teeth rattle. She could hear the clatter of metal in the room behind them, the door likely blown off it’s hinges. Smoke began to pour out of the open vent above them and filled the hallway with the smell of burning electronics. Footsteps sounded on the stairs at the far end of the hall from them and Amélie pointed a long finger toward the approaching Talon goons.

“Three.”

Lena was off like an arrow, sprinting down the hall toward the stairs. There were four of them and all of them looked surprised to see Lena barreling at them. They looked even more surprised when she vanished. She blinked back into existence in the middle of the group, pulse pistols firing in quick bursts. Two fell before they could react, a third falling to Amélie’s rifle. The fourth quickly gained his bearings and turned to fire at Lena, only to find her missing. Amélie’s rifle cracked again, loud in the hallway, and the man collapsed to the ground.

“There can’t be many of them left,” Lena said as she reappeared at the foot of the stairs.

“I would not be so hopeful,” Amélie said, brushing past her.

Lena quickly followed, the two of them making their way upstairs. She still hoped Amélie was wrong, even when she knew better. The Talon agents waiting for them dashed her hopes completely. Talon had had the time to prepare for them, setting up to cover the one and only exit. Anyone coming up from the stairs would be shot immediately, not given time to react. Unfortunately for them, they hadn’t set up to deal with Lena.

When she appeared behind them, pistols blazing, they were caught entirely off guard. Many spun, trying to get a bead on her only for her to vanish again in a blink of light. Amélie fired, hidden as best as she could manage in the stairwell, taking advantage of the distraction. It was something to the two of them had fallen into quite easily. Lena was a walking, teleporting disruption and Amélie knew how best to take advantage of it. One by one, the Talon agents fell dead until Lena stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily.

“Well done,” Amélie said as she walked into the room. “I know you are tired, but we need to keep moving.”

Lena nodded silently, trailing after Amélie as caught her breath. No matter how many times Winston upgraded her accelerator, it never seemed to be enough. She felt worn down, not physically but somewhere deeper than that. Amélie kept moving, though she slowed her pace enough for Lena to keep up. She was tense, waiting for another attack. To the relief of both of them, it never came. Lena teleported her way down the last stretch of the compound, blinking into the early morning sunlight with her weapons drawn.

“Nothing,” she called over her shoulder. “Which is weird.”

“It means there are more on the way,” Amélie said, walking over to one of the transport vehicles sitting near the wall of the building. “You drive.”

Lena looked surprised but slipped into the driver’s seat, starting the engine when Amélie joined her. The car raised a foot off the ground, hovering with a low hum. She hit the accelerator, shooting out from the compound into the field that surrounded it. Amélie sat facing backwards, her rifle at the ready. In the distance she could hear the thrum of an engine, likely a plane. There hadn’t been any at the compound itself or she might have risked stealing one of them. But it was a small outpost, designed to look like a rather extensive electrical substation. Huge transmission towers rose up over the low, concrete building. Most of the Talon outposts they’d hit recently were similar.

Amélie’s paranoia was warranted. As they hit the edge of the woods, a black Talon aircraft swept over the outpost. It hovered low to the ground, soldiers evacuating and moving to secure the building. She looked through the scope of her rifle, watching the agents, waiting for one of them to point in their direction. None of them did before the trees closed around their vehicle, hiding them from sight.

“They are getting quicker in their response,” she said as they pulled up to their own converted Talon craft.

“Still not that fast,” Lena said with a smirk. “We got out just fine.”

Amélie looked at her a moment but decided not to press the argument. “They managed to give us fake codes.”

“We hit five of them in a row,” Lena pointed out as they boarded the plane. Lena settled into the pilot’s seat and started preparations to take off. “I’m not really surprised they finally caught on.”

“We cannot keep doing this,” Amélie said with a sigh, sitting in the co-pilot’s chair and strapping in. “But I do not think we can stop, either.”

“Are we getting close?”

Amélie didn’t answer. She stared out the window, waiting as the trees sank down around them before they broke through the canopy. Lena pointed the plane in a random direction that wasn’t home and pushed the throttle to full. Both of them were pressed back into their chairs, a feeling Amélie still wasn’t familiar with.

“I hope we are,” she said finally. “I really hope we are.”


	11. Chapter 11

The console chirped to life as Lena punched in the unlock code. The plane could be flown with it closed off, but the more important functions were unaccessible. Features like their connection to Athena, which blinked to life on the console. A screen showed the slowly rotating stylized A that was her symbol.

“Hello, Lena,” she said cheerfully through the speaker below her screen. “And hello, Amélie. I’m pleased to see you’ve made it out safely. Did you have any luck?”

“We think so,” Lena said as Amélie reached over and plugged the information device into the console. “Here’s what we got, go ahead and send it back. Have a look if you want to.”

“Hm, interesting. There is something strange in this data but I’m not sure what,” Athena said, her screen flickering. “I will let you know when I’ve had a better look. Shall I fly you home?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Lena said, glancing over at Amélie. “I think we could use some rest.”

“Very well. We will see you soon,” Athena said before her screen dimmed.

Amélie sat without moving, her gaze fixed on Lena’s thigh. Lena looked down at herself and saw the bullet wound she’d received earlier. A rush of pain shot up through her leg as the suppressing influence of ignorance was pulled away. While it didn’t look bad from where she could see it, it would probably have to be attended to. Amélie was intimately familiar with wounds like this, so the fact that she seemed transfixed by it was odd to Lena. Looking closer, she could see the muscles in Amélie’s jaw working as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.

“Would you help me?” Lena said, slipping from her seat.

Amélie visibly relaxed, her shoulders falling and the tightness in her face softening. “Yes, that is a good idea. Best to take care of it now.”

Lena smiled brightly and walked back out of the cockpit, wincing at the pain that flared in her leg with each step. Amélie followed, the taller woman stooping beneath the door frame before walking over to the medical supplies. Lena took a seat on one of the personnel benches, stretching her leg out.

“Pull down your pants,” Amélie said as she crouched down next to Lena.

“What?” Lena squeaked in surprise, looking at Amélie with round eyes.

“I cannot clean it through your clothing, Lena,” Amélie said with a sigh. “You will need to pull down your pants.”

Lena simply stared, her cheeks slowly growing hotter as she blushed. Pale as she was, it didn’t take long until she looked as though she had a mild sunburn. Amélie watched steadily, waiting for Lena to comply. Lena looked back at her like a startled animal before she let out a long, suffering sigh. She undid the front of her pants and hooked her fingers in her clothing, looking mortified and horribly confused as she began to not only remove her pants, but her underwear as well.

“Trousers!” Amélie shouted, frantically correcting her mistake. “Pull down your trousers. Leave your pants on. Please.”

Lena breathed a sigh of relief and wriggled out of her pants, leaving her underpants on. Amélie looked down to inspect the injury but stopped in surprise. Instead of wearing something sensible like one would expect on a combat mission, Lena was wearing a pair of black panties with a small Union Jack on the front. Amélie turned her gaze up to Lena’s face, finding that the poor woman had gone the color of a tomato. Amélie opened her mouth to question but she couldn’t form the words, only managing a confused sort of huff.

“Sometimes I like to feel patriotic, okay?” Lena whined defensively, trying to hide her face behind her hands.

“They look like something from a tourist shop,” Amélie said. When Lena said nothing in defense, she barked out a surprised laugh. “They are! You bought them in a tourist shop. In your own country!”

“Shut up! I thought they looked cute, alright?” Lena said in a huff, dropping her hands down. “You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Who would I tell? Athena?” Amélie said as she opened the medical kit. “And, for what it is worth, they do look cute.”

Lena blinked in surprise, watching Amélie unpack the kit. She swallowed nervously, fingers playing at the hem of her shirt as she tried to think of something to say. She opened her mouth only to cry out in pain as Amélie doused her wound with alcohol, effectively killing both bacteria and the moment. There were no more words as Amélie cleaned and bandaged the wound as best she could with what they had. It would at least prevent infection. She gave Lena’s bare thigh a light pat before she gathered up her medical supplies and stood, returning to the cockpit.

Lingering to pull her clothes back into place, Lena watched Amélie go. She could still feel the coolness of those touches on her thigh. There was a tightness in her chest that had nothing to do with her wound. She watched the way Amélie brushed her long hair back before she sat down. She watched the sunlight filter into the plane and onto her blue skin. Lena took a steadying breath as she moved to take a seat next to Amélie.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said.

Amélie raised her brow, glancing over. “I just wish you had not shot it. We might have been able to think of something.”

Lena sighed softly. “I panicked.”

“I know.”

“I swear I typed in all the codes right.”

“I know you did,” Amélie said, resting her head back against her seat and closing her eyes. “The codes were bad. They let us take false codes.”

“I didn’t think they’d figure it out so fast,” Lena said as she curled her legs beneath her. She winced a bit as the motion stretched the skin around her wound, but settled in after a moment. “What we were after. I guess we’ve been hitting them pretty often.”

“I suppose too often,” Amélie agreed. “Five different sites in less than three months was probably a bit risky, but…”

Lena let Amélie trail off, the conversation dropping like it always did. She wanted to nudge and press the topic, but the last time she tried, Amélie hadn’t spoken with her for over a week. Instead she sighed softly and reached over, tapping a button that turned on the window tinting. The windshield slowly went darker until it felt more like they were flying late at night. When Lena looked back over, Amélie’s breathing was already slower as she prepared to rest and recover from their excursion. She had started to sleep on their trips back after the second raid, halfway through the flight for that time but the next and the one after nearly as soon as they had taken off.

“It’ll be alright,” Lena said softly, unable to help herself. 

Amelie didn't respond, her eyes closed. Finally, her hand went to her face, rubbing across her cheek. "No, Lena. It will not. We need to talk."

"About what?" Lena asked uncertainly, trying to ignore the sudden jolt of cold in her gut.

"I did not tell you the truth," Amelie said as she sat up. She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, not looking over at Lena. "What is happening, why I need this information, this machine from Talon. Whatever they did to me, the conditioning they did is wearing off and I do not think it will come back."

"Well, that's good then, right?" Lena interrupted hopefully but she knew with dread it wasn't.

"When it does completely, it will kill me," Amelie finished, her voice soft.

Lena felt as if the plane was suddenly plummeting toward the earth. Everything seemed to drop away from her, leaving her reeling as she tried to hold on. Her head felt light, her limbs heavy, and her chest felt like it was being compressed with steel bands. She tried to speak but her mouth wouldn't work. It felt dry and her tongue was heavy, sticking to the bottom of her mouth. She swallowed hard and reached a hand tentatively toward Amelie.

"No, that can't be right," she whispered. "There's a mistake, right? Amelie, please."

Amelie stood from her seat, looking down at Lena with a faint and sad smile. "No, souris. There is not. The scans we have run say it is true. I had hoped we would find something to help, but we have not and time is growing short. I think that I would just like to rest. If I can do nothing, then I will be at least be comfortable."

"We can still try, Amelie," Lena insisted, a note of desperation in her voice. "It's not over yet!"

"I am sorry, Lena," Amelie said, reaching over. Her fingertips lightly touched against Lena's cheek. "I did not wish for you to find out this way. Or at all. Despite everything, despite our past, I did not want to see you like this."

Lena reached up to try and take Amelie's hand, to hold it to her cheek. She needed to feel that cool touch on her skin, feel the softness of it like cold silk. Amelie drew her hand back before Lena could grab it, letting it fall to her side. She looked down at Lena, her yellow eyes holding Lena's gaze. The corners of Amelie's lips twitched downward, her lips parting slightly. There was a twitch in her throat as she swallowed, a small hitch. Muted though it was, Lena could see the sadness, the truth of it.

"I won't give up," Lena said as firmly as she could, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice.

"I know," Amelie said softly. "But I hope that..." She trailed off before shaking her head. "I do not know what I hope anymore. Things are far too different. But I think I would like if you were there with me, so do not let this consume you. Do not let this keep you. If I was your goal, then do not forget your goal."

Amelie turned and walked out of the cockpit toward the back of the plane. She pulled a bag down from a hook and put it on a bench, making herself an impromptu pillow. It wasn't much nor very comfortable, but she was too tired to care. She felt tired more often than not lately and their missions didn't help. She stretched out on the bench and fell asleep a moment later.

Lena waited until Amelie had gone, the bands tightening around her chest until she felt like she couldn't breath. She slumped forward slowly in her seat and buried her face in her hands. Tears stung her eyes and smeared hot against her palms. She inhaled sharply, a ragged gasp that fought against the searing anxiety in her chest. When she exhaled, it came out as a strained whimper. She wanted to scream and sob and yell but Amelie was asleep. Lena fought the urge down, choked back her tears. When she sat back up, her face was wet and her eyes red. She felt numb. She watched the clouds go by in silence, alone, as they flew back to Gibraltar. 

Almost as soon as the wheels had touched down on the landing pad at Gibraltar, Amélie was off the plane. She did it without a word, slipping off like a shadow while Lena finished her landing routine and powered down the craft. The engines whined as they spun down and Lena unbuckled herself from her seat, turning to leave the cabin. Her mouth opened, words on her lips and the sounds of them in her throat, only to see that she was alone. Her shoulders slumped. The reassurances and bracing words she had wanted to say all died and all she could do was grab her gear.

Hopping out of the plane, Lena walked toward the building with her head down, watching her feet with unfocused eyes. Her shoes scuffed noisily against the concrete, the sound echoing in the emptiness before a gust of wind would come along to sweep it off. The air was cool, colder and wet when the wind blew. The smell of salt stung her nose and beneath that was the heavy, damp scent of oncoming rain. 

Lena pulled open the door to the main building of the Gibraltar watchpoint. A long hallway greeted her, bright with lights along the ceiling. The floor shone beneath the glare, shimmering the way only freshly polished tile could. The walls were bright white with perfectly even lines of blue running parallel to the floor at halfway up the wall. There were three of them increasing in width from top to bottom, stacked with white spaces between them. For a moment, Lena forgot everything else. She had a sensation that she wasn’t in the right time, that she was wrong again. It was a feeling all too familiar to her and panic clutched at her heart. She forced herself to breath and shook her head, trying to shake it all away.

She stepped inside, letting the door shut loudly behind her. Leaning against it, she stared and waited for something to happen. Maybe someone would walk by, someone who shouldn’t be there. Maybe they were dead and she was out of sync again, seeing times and places she had no right to be in. But no one appeared. There were no ghosts, no memories, no flickering forms of people she could never touch or speak to. She shut her eyes tightly and took a deep breath in through her nose. What was there, though, was the smell of paint.

Pressing the heels of her palms against her eyes, Lena exhaled a sharp _tch_ of irritation. The sharpness in her chest began to dull by fractions, her heartbeat slowly returning to normal. The coils of rope that were squeezing her stomach began to drop away one at a time. She wanted to scream and laugh at the same time. Laugh that she was so foolish to think the unthinkable had happened, that she had without warning, with her accelerator, gotten shoved out of the timeline again. She wanted to scream because…

She dreamt about it sometimes. It wasn’t as bad those days as it had been right after. Right after both incidents, at that. She’d wake up in a panic, vanishing from her bed and appearing in the bathroom or down the hall. She could never forget the way it felt even after she stopped thinking about it as much. It was less a thought and more a shard of glass, buried deep in her mind and stabbing painfully if it was jostled. Though she was mostly anchored to the proper point in time now, but she still had trouble viewing time like everyone else. That made those memories forever fresh, forever sharp. There was no dulling them.

Hands touched her upper arms, cold ones with long fingers that slipped beneath the sleeves of her shirt. Lena tensed on instinct, her muscles tightening as she tried to pull away only to find the door trapping her. The hands squeezed gently and she noticed the feel of them, her body relaxing. Instead of away, she leaned forward. Amélie hesitated before sighing softly, a gentle sound of concern more than irritation. She pulled Lena closer, stopping shy of embracing the shorter woman.

“We were wondering where you went,” she said softly, looking down at Lena. “We expected you to come join us. We have things to discuss.”

Lena shrugged weakly beneath those cool hands. “I was…”

“Upset,” Amélie finished for her. “You have a right to be. I suppose if the situation was reversed, I would be upset too.”

Lena opened her eyes and looked up, blinking at the bright light. “You’d be upset if something happened to me?”

“I think yes,” Amélie said before pausing in thought. “At least now.”

Lena’s lips parted as she tried to speak, but she had no words to articulate what she felt. Joy was there, bright and shining in her heart. If Amélie would be upset, that must have meant she cared. Right? The uncertainty spilled out, coating the joy and tainting it, letting the worst question come forth.

Lena let out a small croaking sound.

Amélie smiled and drew her hands back. She started to turn away before hesitating. She reached a hand out and brushed her fingers through Lena’s hair lightly. Seemingly satisfied, she turned and walked back down the hallway, leaving Lena on her own again.

“Why now?” Lena finally asked the empty hall, giving words to the worst question. “Why tell me now?”


	12. Chapter 12

Amélie left Lena at the door, walking quickly back the way she had come. The bright, clean hallway gave way to a similar room that looked like it was meant to be a break room. Or a sitting room, perhaps. That was an odd thing to Amélie considering no one was there but Lena, Winston, and herself. But something in the last few months had caused Winston to go on a spree, cleaning and fixing sections of the old compound. During the times when the two of them had been gone, Winston had even built small robots to help repair and vacuum and paint.

Winston stood next to a table covered with a sheet of lightly tinted glass. Athena’s glowing blue symbol pulsated faintly on the shiny surface in the center, solidifying briefly when Amélie entered. It began to flicker again when Athena saw Amélie was alone. Winston cocked his large head questioningly.

“She will be along,” Amélie said as she returned to her seat, sitting down heavily in one of the padded chairs. It groaned under her, the age of it showing despite Winston’s efforts to revitalize the compound. “She is upset, as you can understand.”

“I don’t know why you chose now to tell her all of this,” Winston said with a huff.

“I am tired of lying. It is more effort than it is worth because it gets us nothing. Her...enthusiasm and optimism will only make it hurt more when I die with no warning,” Amélie said, a sharp note of irritation creeping into her voice.

“I suppose, but maybe,” he started before sighing and shaking his head. “No, you’re right. I guess I’ve just been putting it off. It’s not a conversation I wanted to have.”

“Which is why I did not make you,” Amélie said, ignoring the surprised look Winston shot her. “Besides, it is my own issue, so it is mine to discuss how and when I wish to. It was not the most ideal time but it was necessary.”

Winston opened his mouth to reply but stayed silent when he heard Lena’s footsteps in the hall. Amélie was grateful for that. He had done a great deal for her, that was true, but she did not care to explain herself to him. One question always opened the door for more and more, a creeping suspicion that maybe he no longer truly meant in his mind, but still lingered in his heart. To him, she was something to worry about, to feel threatened by. To Lena, she was something to be protected and helped and saved. It was an interesting position to be in.

Lena stepped around the corner, pausing to examine the room. Her body was tense and her jaw was set, until her eyes fell on Amélie. They lingered until Amélie offered her a small smile, a reassurance she did not quite feel. All of the assuredness she had known, the cold and calm line that had been her life for years, was gone. Instead, she found herself feeling things she had forgotten she could and remembering things that seemed as if they were from another distant person. Winston cleared his throat and brought Amélie’s focus back to the present. Lena stood near the doorway, arms folded over her chest.

“I believe we need to talk about what comes next,” Winston said, his deep voice even heavier with worry. He plucked his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. “While the information you’ve obtained is valuable and useful, it isn’t useful in the way that we hoped. And it is getting riskier and riskier to try and get it. I’m not sure it’s worth it.”

Lena sucked in a sharp breath that Amélie heard across the table. The smaller woman dropped her arms to her side and strode forward, bumping her waist up against the edge of the table. Her hands smacked down against the cool glass top. 

“You’d better not be saying what I think you are,” she said sharply to Wiston.

“Calm down, Lena,” Amélie said with a soft sigh. She stood, shooting the gorilla a sharp look as he winced back from Lena. “He is saying that. We have reached the end of this. This was our last mission against Talon.”

Lena gaped at her for a moment before sputtering. “You’ll die, Amélie!”

Teeth gritted hard together, Amélie was up and out of her seat in a flash, sending the chair bouncing off the wall behind her. She stepped forward, standing opposite Lena across the table. She jabbed a long, pale blue finger toward the other woman. There was a hot sensation in the pit of her stomach, bubbling up into her chest. She was angry, that was familiar enough. But there was something more to it, something she didn’t understand.

“I know that, Lena! I am not an idiot,” Amélie snapped. “I can feel myself dying. Every day it gets worse. The pain in my head, the exhaustion that cuts to my bones. I go to sleep every night wondering if I will wake up. And if I do wake up, what will my new sickness be? Will I be unable to eat? Will I lose my sight? Will the tremors begin? Will they finally, this day, start and spell out my death in big bright letters? Yes, Lena, I will die. I am dying. You are not the only one this _bothers_ , I can reassure you. But at this point, after these months, I had hoped you could understand. I had hoped you could see that maybe I would like peace in the end, not to break myself against empty promises. If you cannot see this, cannot understand this, then you are the same selfish little girl who dragged me into this situation. Now a selfish girl who does not know when it is time to stop.”

Amélie recoiled when she realized they were both staring at her. Her skin grew warm, a mix of anger and embarrassment boiling the blood beneath her skin. Her stomach twisted and churned, the muscles through her chest tight. She realized now what the other feelings were, things she had not felt for so long and now had to come to terms with in the worst possible moment. Mixed in with her anger, anger at herself, at Lena, at primarily Talon, there was the dark bitterness of regret, the feeling of failure that came with the end of things.

“I am sorry, Lena,” she said softly, stepping back to sit in her chair again. She loosely wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I did not mean that.”

“No, it’s alright,” Lena muttered, her voice little more than a croak beneath emotion. “You’re right. This is...it’s you, not me. You decide. It’s not my place. I’m sorry.”

Winston cleared his throat after a few seconds of awkward silence. “I think we can have this review another time. You’re both tired. You should eat and get some rest, we can talk in the morning.”

Lena spun on her heel without word and disappeared back out of the room, making her way toward her bunk. Amélie started to stand, wanting to follow, but a rush of light headedness forced her back down. Winston watched her uncertainly before walking over closer. He reached a huge hand out as if her were going to touch her but seemed to think better, resting his hand on the arm of the chair.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice tense. Unlike Lena, he had a harder time accepting this all of this change. “Do you need help?”

“Is that not why I came here to begin with?” Amélie said bitterly before sighing when she saw Winston frown. “No, I am fine. Thank you.”

“Get some rest, I’ll talk to Lena in the morning,” he said with a grunt, striding out of the room back toward his laboratory.

Amélie sat for a moment, alone in the too quiet building. It was too large for the three of them, too empty, and too filled with memories for them all. No number of coats of paint would hide their pasts. Winston was bound by his, chained to the place by history. Lena and Amélie herself were surrounded by nothing but ghosts with names they didn’t want to speak. Amélie felt the weight of them, these people she had never forgotten even in the depths of her enslavement though they had lacked emotional meaning. Now the woman who could not feel had begun to again and she did not want to, not beneath the crushing wave that was approaching her.

She stood quickly from her chair, lurching forward as her body rebelled against the sudden movement. Her head swam and her vision threatened to blur but she leaned a hand on the table to support herself. The weakness had been getting worse, exacerbated by exhaustion after missions. She usually hid away, waited until morning and the spells had passed, but she had not been given the option that night. She took a few deep breaths, waited for the sensations to pass, and set out through the compound, making her way toward the rooms she and Lena occupied in an empty wing.

Lena’s door was shut, but she could hear the woman inside, muffled behind the metal. Amélie pressed her ear to the door and listened. It sounded like she was crying, heavy sobs that cut unexpectedly at Amélie’s heart. There was a pang of something, guilt maybe? She placed her hand over her stomach, pressing lightly as if it would shoo the emotion away. When it inevitably did not, she opened the door.

“Shit, Winston, you gotta knock,” Lena said as she hastily wiped her face and began to turn away from the door. She paused when she saw it was Amélie. “Oh, I didn’t...are you okay?”

Amélie shut the door behind her gently, leaning against it as she looked Lena over. Her eyes were red and watery, cheeks wet. Lena seemed to realize, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. It served only to smear it around, making her face shiny in the overhead light. She had taken her harness off and Amélie was struck by how much smaller she seemed without the bulk.

“I suppose I should be asking you that,” Amélie said softly as she stepped into the room. It was small, a simple bedroom with a low bed that Lena was sitting on. “I heard you crying through the door.”

“I’m fine,” Lena muttered, dropping her gaze to her lap. “Just been a long day.”

Amélie sighed as she sat down on the edge of the bed next to the other woman. She didn’t say anything for a few moments, staring at a faded poster on the wall across from them. There were words she wanted to say, she needed to say even, but her mouth and mind couldn’t agree on how.

“I am sorry I snapped at you,” she finally said, starting at the obvious point. “I know you’re just trying to help.”

“But you’re right, I’m being selfish. I want you to be okay because...because of,” Lena said, trailing off and shaking her head. She clasped her hands in her lap. “I want you to live for you too, but I have you back, I have my friend and I don’t want to lose that.”

“I am tired, Lena. We have tried very hard, but I cannot keep doing this. I do not want to spend my last however long it is that I have running after empty promises. I do not want us to get hurt, I do not want to die that way,” Amélie said before pausing. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Lena. “I find myself worrying that you will die that way.”

“You wanted to kill me a few months ago,” Lena said with a small smile.

“Yes, true, but now you are all that I have left of the life I lost,” Amélie said, not returning the smile. Her chest ached at the thought. “I have no one else. They are dead or gone. They believe me dead or gone or want to kill me themselves. You are the only one still here, the only one that knows me.”

“You won’t be alone.”

Amélie looked over, finding Lena staring up at her. Yellow eyes found brown ones, their gaze locking for a moment. Lena’s lips parted and she seemed to tremble beneath Amélie’s attention. Words and sensation built up in Amélie’s chest, the bands around her ribs tightening even further. She didn’t trust herself to speak. She turned away, looking toward the door, ignoring that she could feel Lena deflate next to her. Moment’s passed in silence, Amélie relaxing bit by bit beneath emotions she was unaccustomed to. Even before she had been turned, she wondered how well this would have gone. She took a slow, deep breath, preparing to say more when Lena asked the question. Amélie’s breath caught in her chest.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lena asked, her voice quiet, almost sounding distant.

“You would have worried,” Amélie said when she found her voice again. “Panicked, rushed off to do whatever you could, take every risk. Get yourself killed. I thought that if you did not know, if you thought there was nothing but time, then you would take more care. I also did not know how long it was going to be.”

“We could have done more, though. We could have found it,” Lena argued, her voice becoming more sure.

“Maybe. But what if one of us had been killed being reckless? What then?”

Lena hesitated a moment before huffing out a breath. “What if? What if, what if that, what if this,” she said in a voice tinged with irritation. Her hands unclasped from her lap and she gestured towards the door. “He’s the same way. It’s always this worry over what could be, never worry about what is happening. Anything could happen, sure, but if we do nothing but think about what could go wrong, when are we going to make anything better?”

Amélie blinked at the sudden change of tone. She looked over at Lena, who wasn’t looking back this time. The smaller woman was tense, her body angles and sharp, set joints as she spilled her frustrations. Even as irritation built up, Amélie could see the tears still swimming in those big eyes.

“We have to take risks, that’s just the nature of all of this,” Lena continued. “We could have found a way to help you but we won’t know. We could have gotten more people to help, called in friends and favors. We could have hit Talon and broken them even while we tried to save your life. And maybe I’m just being selfish, maybe that’s what I am, but I can’t help it. I love you, Amélie, and I--”

Lena’s words cut off abruptly as Amélie reached over, cupping her face in both long blue hands. Turning Lena to face her, Amélie pulled her in closer, her mind a cloud that she couldn’t think in. She leaned in and her lips found Lena’s, pressing firmly. She felt the warmth of Lena’s lips, tasted the sweetness of the mingled with the salt of her tears. She slipped her eyes shut even as Lena’s went wide. The anxious bands around her chest, so tight that she felt constrained and struggled to breath, snapped one by one as she leaned into the kiss. They fell away from her as Lena returned it.

It was not a deep kiss nor an intense one, but it was a first one. Their lips alternated between pressing hard enough to feel teeth to barely touching at all. They parted, barely moving, sharing breath between the two of them. Lena began to cry again, the warmth of her tears streaking against Amélie’s cheeks. Lena fumbled with her hands, unsure where to put them, first on Amélie’s wrists to hold her hands in place before sliding them up to her shoulders. Unsatisfied there, they fell down to Amélie’s waist.

Moments passed, stretched out in the way that only happened during intimacy, feeling like minutes and hours. Finally, Amélie drew back, her eyes opening to find Lena’s still closed. Her soft lips curved into a small smile and Amélie began to return the expression before the bands returned around her chest, tighter than ever. She inhaled sharply, but breath only wheezed through her throat. What had she done? This wasn’t right. She stood suddenly, pulling away from Lena who opened her eyes in confusion and hurt. Unable to speak even if she knew what to say, Amélie turned and made her to the door.

She stumbled, thumping against the wall as her knees threatened to give way. Her hand found the doorknob and she yanked the door open hard. Her foot caught on nothing as she moved to go through it, tripping on air as the threats her knee had been giving became reality. She fell forward into the hallway, the world rushing by in a sideways blur before everything went dark.

 

Amélie woke in her room, darkness and blurriness slowly pulling back to reveal the plain white walls and the few items she owned. Mostly it was weaponry. She groaned, looking to check what time it was. She couldn’t remember anything after kissing Lena, her brain simply acting as if the her life, the world, and the universe had simply been put on pause for hours. There was a note on her bedside table along with a plastic cup of pills and a glass of water. She took the note and glanced over it.

_Amélie,_

_You blacked out. Winston said it was your illness. I don’t know if that’s true, I think there was more to it. He said you’ll be okay but you should sleep. The medicine should help. I’ll come check on you later._

_-Lena_

With a sigh, Amélie took the pills and water, downing both quickly. She was unfortunately accustomed to having to take many more than that. She lay in her bed, letting the minutes tick by as she tried to make sense of what had happened and let the exhaustion lift from her limbs.

“That was stupid. Why did you do it?” she asked herself in a croaking voice. “I do not know.”

Even as she answered herself she knew she was lying. There was an answer. A stupid, pointless answer that was bound to hurt multiple people. But it was an answer all the same. She slowly stood and found her robe, tying it around herself before heading to the door. Across the hall, three rooms down was Lena’s room. Amélie walked slowly, careful not to rush. Her legs felt heavy and uncooperative.

She opened the door to Lena’s room to find it empty. The nearby showers were also dark. A long, taxing walk brought her to the mess hall to find it empty as well. The only other place Lena was likely to be was Winston’s lab but when Amélie entered it, breathing heavily from exertion, she found only the gorilla in the room.

“You shouldn’t be up,” he said heavily, frowning when he saw Amélie.

“Where’s Lena?” she asked.

“She was supposed to be with you,” Winston said. He looked at Amélie for a long moment, the two of them sharing a dawning realization. “Athena?”

“Lena is not on the island,” Athena said, her voice meek. “She said she had authorization from you, Winston.”

“To do what?” Amélie snapped, stumbling toward the console.

There was a pause from the AI, a sense of dread that washed over her and the two others in the room. “To scout a new Talon base.”


	13. Chapter 13

Lena held tightly to the controls of the plane, staring straight ahead and barely blinking. When Winston’s voice came over the radio, she reached over and turned it off without even thinking. When Athena spoke, she muted the AI. She couldn’t entirely turn Athena off, but she needed silence. Her hands began to shake and she gripped even tighter to stop them.

Each time she closed her eyes, she saw Amélie. She saw Amélie’s face in front of her own, saw the way those blue lips parted. She could feel the cool touch of Amélie’s hand on her cheek, she could smell the scent of skin even now and so far away from her. Each time she felt and saw these things, her chest tightened until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. Tears burned in her eyes and she had to rub them away roughly with the heel of her palm.

She’d been reeling for hours, it felt like, her mind unable to find solid ground. She could feel the cold dread that rose up from deep inside her, a wellspring of despair over Amélie’s confession about her health. It mingled with the warmth of that kiss. No matter how unexpected it had been, despite her state of mind when it happen, heat had bloomed within her under that surprising and gentle touch. A kiss meant there were feelings. Amélie cared about her, maybe more. But she was dying! Why only now could she say something? There was guilt that came with that question, she knew it was a selfish thing to feel. 

She had done so much, though. She had risked so much. All for a woman who wanted her dead only months ago. She had always hoped there could be more, she had dreamed about it since the two had come to Gibraltar. Vivid dreams, dreams that made it difficult to wake up because she never wanted them to end. Dreams that she wanted to be real but knew they would never be. But she was wrong. They could be real, if only for a few days more. But if she found a way to help Amélie, it could be for longer.

Lena drew her feet up onto the seat, knees to her chest. She laid her cheek against her leg and sighed. It was all for Amélie. She refused to give up even if they had. She would not sit by and watch Amélie fade away and die, not after everything. Her eyes slipped shut, the emotional weight of the past day resting heavily on her. She’d not slept properly, not really, but she slept then. It was fitful, ruined by the twitching tenseness of her own body and a head filled with fear. She dreamed of darkness and blood, tears and screams. When the plane’s autopilot began to beep, she jerked awake and grabbed the stick, pulling back hard. She blinked several times as her mind caught up with her body and she let go. It was only the alarm telling her she was close. Thankfully, she’d disengaged control.

She reengaged it then, taking over from the autopilot and finding a place to land. It was easy enough, there wasn’t much cover in the area and it was still day out. She’d left later than intended, but it was still only mid-afternoon by the time her wheels touched the ground. Cursing herself softly for not leaving later and coming in under cover of darkness, she readied herself to leave. She was alone this time, things were going to be much different.

Her target was in an abandoned town to the south of her landing site. Like so many other places across Europe, across the world, it had suffered under the catastrophe that was the Omnic Crisis. Like other places, even after the war ended, no one returned to claim it. Either it was far too damaged, held too many bad memories, or no one survived. It was surrounded by a field that was slowly being retaken by the forest beyond, trees dotting it here and there. Mostly, it was tall grass that swished around her calves and brilliant flowers. The field was creeping into the town, as if it were fleeing the forest. Many of the outer buildings were little more than mossy stone and rotted wood beams coated with lichen. Further in, they still mostly stood, though all heavily damaged.

It was between these that Lena crept. She knew vaguely where the entrance to the hideout was, but not exactly. Talon could be anywhere, watching and ready to shoot her should she so much as show a finger. Grass and leaves crunched under her feet no matter how lightly she stepped and the broad intersections left her far too exposed for her liking. She resorted to using her accelerator, blinking in and out of time to appear across the street and in the shadows. She hated to do it. She could do it often enough, but she always worried she’d find out the limit one day.

Lena was at the point of thinking she had the wrong town when she noticed a small symbol painted on a wall. She snuck closer to it and smiled in a brief moment of relief. It was a Talon symbol. The entrance was close, but she hadn’t seen any agents around. She chewed on her bottom lip uncertainly, wondering if maybe they simply hadn’t posted any guards. This place _was_ pretty far away from anything. Not to mention hidden well enough that no one was likely to stumble on it without looking. It had certainly taken her some effort. Shaking her head, she pulled her pistols free just in case she needed them sooner than later.

A few symbols later, she found herself standing before the door. It had been beneath the shuttered doors of a cellar and down a flight of stairs beneath what had once been a coffee shop. There had been no sentry, no sensors or trip lines that she could see, just a door to some stairs. The door to the outpost was heavy steel set into an equally heavy steel frame and bolted into, what Lena imaged, were heavy steel walls. She hoped her pulse bomb would get through if it came to that, but she was certainly one to just try opening it first. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she pushed the handle just enough to see if it would open. It did. Pistols at the ready and her jaw set, she pushed the door all the way open with her foot and looked inside.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Fuck.”

 

“This is a terrible idea,” Winston muttered once again from his seat in the cockpit.

“So you have said,” Amélie shot back. “I have yet to hear a better solution from you.”

“Are you even capable of this? You were just recently unconscious and you’re still weak,” he said, his tone even and sincere.

Amélie sighed, running a hand over her hair before she returned to prepping her rifle. She sat on the floor in the back of the smaller plane, Winston’s own transport. It was more of a cargo craft than the military one that Lena had stolen. She hoped it wouldn’t cause any issues for them. Winston would do his best to fly how she wanted, she knew that. He had been nothing but accommodating, despite his complaints and concerns. He wanted to rescue Lena as much as she did, maybe more so, but there was a fear that this little stunt of their own would result in deaths. She had the same fear, but it was better than doing nothing. They had to take risks.

“I promise I am well enough for this,” Amélie said, hoping it wasn’t a lie. “Even if I was not, I do not think we have a choice. I want her back.”

Winston glanced over his shoulder at her but said nothing, just huffing a breath out in agreement. Amélie exhaled slowly through her nose, ignoring the twinge in her chest at her own words. She tried her best to do the same with the fact that her stomach felt like it was several hundred feet below the plane, but that was much harder. Winston wasn’t wrong, she was weak and ill but her hands were steady and her mind set. That was enough. It would have to be enough.

“How much longer?” she asked as she pulled her helmet and visor on.

“A few minutes,” Winston said. “We’ll land a bit outside the town and--”

“No, fly over it,” Amélie interrupted. “I will take care of any sentries that might be down there. We cannot afford to waste the time to sneak in.”

Winston didn’t respond at first, his attention on the world in front of the plane.Finally he sighed, massive shoulders slumping. “Fine, if you think it’s best,” he said, sounding unconvinced. “I’m only agreeing for Lena. She trusts you so I will trust you this time, to get her back.”

“I know,” Amélie said softly.

She slung her rifle over her shoulder and prepared for their flight over the town. She cinched a sturdy belt around her waist, tying the other end off to a handle by the door. She tugged on both sides until she was satisfied they were secure. With a push of a button, the side door began to open upward, groaning unhappily at the rough wind. Amélie took a deep breath of the cool air, pulled her visor down, and leaned out of the plane.

Amélie was surprised. Through the heat scan of her visor, she could only find three warm bodies. She had expected more, expected the plane to draw more out, but even these three were moving toward each other and none pausing to look up. That at least made it easier for her. She raised her rifle to her shoulder and began to line her first shot up, thankful that her hands and aim were as steady as ever. She squeezed off the shot and then the next two as they circled slowly above the town.

“That was it,” she called back inside the plane.

“Really? That doesn’t seem right,” Winston shouted back.

“No, it does not,” Amélie muttered to herself.

She swung her rifle around, scanning the ground through the scope. She traced lines outward from each of the men she had shot before working her way back inward. She swore under her breath when she saw nothing, her search pattern becoming more erratic and desperate. She was about to shout for Winston to land, say she’d search on foot, when the plane took enough of a turn to reveal what she needed. A pair of legs stuck out from a basement stairwell, just barely visible in the weeds. It wasn’t anyone she had shot.

“Over there! That building,” she shouted into the plane, gesturing wildly. “The one that looks like a cafe!”

Winston leaned forward in his seat, peering out of the cockpit toward the town. He kept flying onward for long enough that Amélie thought he couldn’t find it. As she was about to speak up, the plane began to drop and turn, heading for the roof of the mostly intact coffee shop. Amélie pulled herself back in the plane and began to undo her harness as Winston pulled to a halt, hovering a few feet above the rooftop.

“Are you sure about this?”

“No,” Amélie admitted. She pulled on the rest of her gear quickly, strapping her mine launcher to her arm along with a few spares around her waist. “But I will do whatever it takes to bring her back.”

“Yes, I believe you will,” he said, though he frowned when he did. “Are you sure you want to go alone?”

“It will be easier. I can do this faster alone than with both of us,” she said, the excuse not entirely certain when it left her mouth. “I will radio you if we need help, so stay nearby.”

“I will. Good luck, Amélie.”

She looked at the gorilla, his expression unreadable on his dark face. She nodded in response before hopping from the plane. Gravel crunched under her feet as she landed and began to make her way across the crumbling concrete. At the far edge, she hooked her grappling line to roof and slid down into the overgrown alley below. The dead man was clearly not Lena, but he was certainly Talon. The front of his black tactical vest was covered in scorched holes and there were several in his throat. Amélie had been fighting with Tracer long enough to know the marks of her weapon.

Weapon at the ready, Amélie made her way down the stairs and nudged open the heavy metal door. She sucked in a surprised breath as she found herself looking down a hallway littered with bodies. She crept her way among them, nudging a few as she passed. All of them were Talon and all of them were quite certainly dead. Lena had clearly made sure of that, a fact which surprised Amélie. Lena had never been afraid to kill and wouldn’t hesitate if she had to, but she often tried to make sure she didn’t have to. This seemed purposeful, almost vindictive. Some of the agents had full clips emptied into their chests. A gunshot echoing through the hallways drew her attention away from the massacre.

Destruction was rampant the further in Amélie went, masking which direction Lena had gone. She saw evidence of the woman’s pulse bomb on a few walls, the concrete scorched in a black blob that reached out in wandering electrical tendrils across the blocks. But more than that, she saw the evidence of simple, common explosives. Grenades had blown divots in the floor and shattered doorways. Talon had made a serious attempt to stop Lena, apparently willing to sacrifice their own base to do so. 

Unable to find a path to follow in the chaos, Amélie found herself agonizingly waiting for the sound of gunshots to lead her along. They obliged her more and more often, the repeated cracks of rifles guiding her through the twisting underground base like sonar. She tried to tell herself that if they were still shooting, then Lena must still be a threat. She must still be alive. But any one of those shots could end that and instead of bracing herself with the knowledge, her stomach twisted itself into knots. It wasn’t until she heard the the thrum of Lena’s pistol between the heavy thud of gunfire that she let herself relax even a little.

When she heard voices, she finally slowed and began to edge along the wall down a narrow hallway. She’d gone far enough that she was certain they were near the very back of the base, where there was no way to go but the way you’d come. If that was true, Lena was trapped.

Amélie peered around a corner to survey the scene. Five Talon agents in heavy combat gear and facemasks. had set up behind a makeshift barrier of heavy steel tables and thick doors. Every now and then, one would stand up and take pot shots at an open doorway at the end of the hall. They didn’t seem to be aiming carefully and the reason became clear. As soon as a shot hit, a spray of blue-white pulse fire shot out from the darkened doorway, plinking uselessly against the thick metal of their barricade.

Teeth gritted, Amélie swung out into the hallway. She fired her wrist launcher, sending a venom mine tumbling into the group where the proximity sensor went off immediately. It burst in a cloud of caustic gas that began to immediately eat away at the ventilators in their masks. They coughed and gagged, reaching up to try and pull the masks of their faces. Amélie wouldn’t give them the chance. With three quick pulls of the trigger, three shots boomed in the hallway and killed four of the Talon agents, two in one shot. The fifth managed to fall backward into one of the open rooms before she could fire again.

She flicked her rifle into fully-automatic and walked down the hall. The thin mist of her mine rose toward the ceiling and quickly dissipated into nothing, leaving her free to enter the room. The man on the ground had finally managed to pull his mask off, gasping for air as he watched her. His hand went for a weapon that he had left lying in the hall, his eyes going wide.

“You!” he gasped in surprise.

“Me,” Amélie agreed as she pulled the trigger and filled the man’s chest and head with holes.

She stepped back out into the hall only to be greeted by another round of fire from the doorway. She swore and fucked back behind the door as the shots ricocheted off the metal. She waited a few moments after it had finished before leaning out just enough that she could shout.

“Lena? It’s me, it is Amélie. Please stop shooting.”

There was a moment of silence before Lena’s voice, quiet and strained, came from the dark room. “Amélie? Really, it’s you?”

“Really,” Amélie said as she pushed apart the barricade and began to walk to the door. “I am coming inside now, so do not shoot.”

“I’m hurt, Amélie.”

Frowning in worry, Amélie stepped into the doorway and fumbled around for a lightswitch. She flicked it and blinked as a harsh fluorescent came to life above them. Sitting on the floor, her back to the wall, was Lena. Her shirt and pants were stained dark with blood, brighter and wetter at her shoulder and thigh. Amélie set her rifle down and rushed over, kneeling to check Lena.

“Mon dieu,” she whispered, gently probing around the bullet holes that riddled Lena’s clothing. None of them seemed to be actual injuries but the last two. “What happened?”

“I ran out of power,” Lena explained, hissing in pain beneath Amélie’s touches. “I couldn’t go back. I got hit and tried to run. Nowhere to go, just here. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone off alone. I’m sorry, Amélie.”

“Hush, Lena. It is alright,” Amélie said. She stood to retrieve her weapon, slinging it across her back. She touched her radio, which hissed to life. “I have her, Winston. But she is hurt. Land nearby where you left me.”

Winston acknowledge before the radio went silent again. Amélie sighed and stepped back over to Lena, reaching down to very carefully gather her up in her arms. Lena cried out in pain and Amélie winced at the sound of it.

“It will be alright, souris,” she said gently, careful not to hold Lena tighter than she had to. “We will get you back safe and it will be alright.”

Lena nodded, barely moving her head to do so. She reached a hand up to rest against Amélie’s neck, her fingers and palm tacky with drying blood. Her eyes began to slip shut as they wound their way back out of the compound. Amélie swore under her breath, a constant stream of angry and worried words while she tried to remember the way she had come, hoping and praying they wouldn’t get lost. She didn’t relax until she saw the glimmer of sunlight falling down the cellar stairs and even then it was only fractionally.

Winston was waiting in the intersection in front of the cafe, the engines of the plane sending dust up in swirling clouds. Amélie picked up her pace, nearly jogging down the road toward the plane, listening to Lena gasp in pain with each step. The quicker they were on the plane, the quicker she could patch Lena up. A little pain now was better than letting her bleed out.

“What happened?” Winston asked in a panic as Amélie clambered into the craft with Lena in her arms. As soon as the door was closed, he pulled the throttle back and began to lift off from his landing space. “Is she alright?”

“She was shot,” Amélie said, grabbing the nearby first aid kit. She began cutting Lena’s clothes away from her wounds, steadying herself as the plane shuddered. “We need to get her home. I can do a little but we need Athena.”

Winston grunted with nothing left to say. He pointed the plane back toward Gibraltar and pushed the engines as hard as he could. The plane protested but he refused to let up. Amélie ignored it all, focusing on the blood stained woman under her hands. She watched Lena slip to the edges of consciousness, watched the shallow way her chest rose and fall. Amélie’s nimble, dexterous hands felt clumsy and uselessly as she tried to see if the bullets were still inside Lena. She couldn’t tell, she didn’t know how bad it was. All she could do was stop the bleeding for now or at least slow it. 

She cleaned the wounds, the sharp pain of the antiseptic bringing Lena back to full wakefulness for a brief moment, before bandaging them. Amélie wiped her hand across her forehead, wiping away the sweat and leaving a streak of blood behind. The bandages on Lena’s thigh darkened in blotches but seemed to hold back the flood that had been flowing before.

“I think she will be okay until we make it back,” Amélie said, “but we need to go as fast as we can.”

“You’re done then?” Winston asked.

“As much as I can be.”

“Good,” he said. “Hold on.”

Amélie blinked in confusion before she understood. Winston seemed to find another level of speed to go but she realized why he had not done it until then. The plan no longer shuddered so much as shook and rattled until it sounded as if it would fall apart. The engines screamed outside, their little world becoming nothing but sound and fury. Amélie grabbed hold of a seat to brace herself, her other hand on Lena to keep her from sliding across the floor.

“Hold on, Lena. Just a little further and you will be fine,” she murmured, though she could barely even hear herself. “My little mouse, hold on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Writing Commissions**
> 
> I’d like to open writing commissions, fanfic confined to Overwatch at the moment. They’d be a set amount of words for a set amount (to be determined), available for a variety of topics, styles, and pairings. You can see examples of my writing here on my AO3 page for a few different characters. Is this something people would be interested in?


	14. Chapter 14

Lena sat alone on the edge of the walkway, her feet dangling down over the edge. She wrapped her arms around the poles of the railing on either side of her. She sighed and slumped to her left, leaning against the metal. Below her was a drop all the way to the sea, which crashed in large waves against the jagged rocks. The wind blew in off the sea, constant but gentle, cool and salty on her skin. It was nice against the heat of the sun, which hung fat and red just above the horizon. With another sigh, she let go of the railing and flopped backward onto the warm grating. She reached one hand up to rub at her shoulder slowly.

“Still hurts,” she muttered.

“Of course it does,” Amélie said. “You were shot.”

Lena started in surprise, her heart thundering in her chest. She hadn’t heard the other woman approach at all, which was impressive on a steel walkway. She knew Amélie was sneaky, but that was unexpected.

“You’re gonna give me a heartattack on top of being shot if you keep doing that,” Lena protested, moving a hand to her chest.

Amélie chuckled and stepped over to Lena, crouching down next to her. She lay a hand over top of Lena’s. Lena’s heart, which had been slowing back down, began to rapidly flutter in her chest. A slightly goofy grin spread across her lips as she looked up at the beautiful blue-skinned woman.

“I’m sorry,” Amélie said softly. “What can I do to make it better?”

“Nah, don’t worry about it,” Lena said as she pushed herself back to sitting, though she scooted back from the edge. She was pleased when Amélie’s hand stayed over her own.

“Are you sure?” Amélie asked. “Because I had something in mind.”

Lena opened her mouth to ask, but was made to close it again when Amélie’s hand moved from her chest to her chin, gently taking hold of it. She turned Lena’s face towards her as she leaned in until they were nose to nose. Amélie’s yellow eyes peered into Lena’s brown ones, a hint of playfulness in those oddly colored depths. Lena’s mouth twitched in a smile and she felt Amélie’s lips on her own, cool and soft. She gasped softly when they pressed more fully against hers, when Amélie slid her arms around her and pulled her in closer. Lena’s eyes slid shut, her hands awkwardly trying to find the proper place to grasp the woman she pressed against. They finally found purchase on Amélie’s shirt, fingers tangling in the cloth.

She felt breathless when Amélie finally pulled away and the kiss broke. She clung harder to the shirt, not wanting to let go, remembering what happened last time. Lena slumped forward, burying her face against Amélie’s shoulder. Amélie only laughed gently, bringing a hand up to brush lightly over Lena’s hair.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better,” Lena agreed. She sat quietly, pressed against Amélie as the breeze blew over them both. “Why’d you kiss me?”

“Because I thought you’d feel better,” Amélie said as her hand slid down Lena’s back. “And because I wanted to. I like kissing you. Did I do something wrong?”

“No, no, you didn’t. I liked it and I feel better,” Lena reassured as she drew back so she could look at Amélie. “But I didn’t mean right now. I meant that first time.”

“Didn’t you want me to?” Amélie asked in confusion. “I thought you did, so I did but I was overwhelmed. It all was more than I expected. I’m sorry for the way I reacted.”

“I did want it!” Lena said more sharply than she intended. She flushed and turned, pulling her knees under herself to kneel. “I did want it, I wanted it so badly. I was so shocked when you did it and then you, you panicked, I guess. And then you blacked out. When we were sure you would be alright, I sat and thought about it all night. I just wanted to know why. Why then?”

Amélie sat quietly for a moment before she shrugged. “It was the right time,” she said simply before pushing herself up off the ground. She held a hand out to Lena. “Come on, we should get inside. It’s getting late.”

“Is it?” Lena asked, looking around. The sky was dark and spattered with stars, the sun vanished below the horizon. She frowned in confusion as she slipped her hand into Amélie’s. “I guess it is.”

“Distracted?” Amélie teased as she pulled Lena to her feet.

“I guess a little bit. It’s been a rough few weeks,” Lena said, shaking her head. 

Amélie offered a smile before she turned and began to walk along the path toward the main building of the compound. Lena hesitated a moment, watching Amélie uncertainly but she moved to catch up when Amélie glanced back at her. They walked in silence, their footsteps clinking against the metal. Amélie pushed open the door to the compound and Lena followed, only to find herself alone.

She inhaled sharply in surprise, spinning around quickly to look for Amélie. When she couldn’t find her, Lena turned to go back out of the door only to find solid wall where she had come in. Behind her she heard the click and soft buzz of fluorescent lights turning on. Chills running up her spine, Lena slowly turned back to look down the hall. Beneath the harsh glare of the lights, the floor was littered with bodies. They wore black clothing with black masks, their arms emblazoned with the Talon symbol. 

As she watched, blood began to pool beneath them, too much blood. It ran in rivulets across the flat surface of the floor, linking the puddles together. More and more streams connected the corpses, forming a mesh that all at once became a pool of it that began to rise. It rose until their arms began to float, rose until it lapped around Lena’s ankles and then her knees. When it reached her thighs it finally stopped. She pressed herself back against the wall, hoping it would open up, that the door would be there, that she’d fall back out of this horrid room. It never did. She stood, watching the corpses bobbing serenely in a lake of warm blood.

Lena pressed herself back against the wall, fingers scratching at the concrete in a desperate attempt to find some way out. She began to panic, her heart racing and breaths coming in shallow, searing gasps. There was no where to go but forward. The walls seemed to close in around her, trying to shove her forward down the body clogged hall.

“Help me,” came Amélie’s voice from somewhere in the distance, from somewhere down the dark hallway. “Lena, please.”

A new wave of panic filled Lena’s chest, stronger than the other one. Her fear for herself, her confusion, were washed away beneath the sudden terror for Amélie’s safety. It wrapped around her heart and began to squeeze until she thought it would burst under the pressure. She clenched her fists and gulped in a deep breath to try and steady herself. It didn’t work, she felt sick, but she couldn’t wait.

She shoved herself off the wall and waded forward, the blood sloshing thickly around her legs. Goosebumps crawled up her skin and she tried not to gag at the sensation. The bodies bobbed with the ripples she created but otherwise remained motionless, letting her skirt around them. Others, she had to nudge out of way, prodding them so they drifted against the wall. As she walked, the lights behind her flickered and went dark, leaving her in a bubble of light. The hallway never seemed to end. Her legs ached from the effort. The bodies around her grew thicker, but she no longer noticed them even as she shoved her way through packs of them. All she knew was she had to get to Amélie. She had to help.

And then her foot hit a slope, making her stumble forward. She caught her balance, avoiding a plunge into the blood, and breathed a sigh of relief at that. Carefully, testing each step, she made her way up the ramp and out of the pool. Her legs were coated thickly in red from feet to hips. It dripped onto the floor around her, staining the concrete in spatters as she continued forward. The hallway ended at an open doorway, a small room beyond.

Lena stepped through the door, looking around desperately for Amélie, but there was no one there. The room was empty save for a strange machine in the back. It was a chair with heavy straps on the armrests and at the base. A strange mesh helmet lined with wires hung from a metal arm overhead. Beside it was a chair covered in papers and syringes. She picked up a folder and flipped through the pages inside, paper covered with words that held no meaning to her. She knew in her heart what it was.

“We can save her now,” she whispered.

“It’s too late,” croaked a voice behind her.

Lena turned, finding the door lead into a white tiled room with a hospital bed in the center. Propped up in it was Amélie, who held a trembling hand out toward Lena. The woman looked smaller, gaunt and diminished, her blue skin and purple-black hair somehow faded, washed out beneath the harsh light. Lena rushed toward her, stumbling across the tile as tears began to sting her eyes. She took hold of Amélie’s hand in both of her own and held it up against her face.

“It can’t be,” Lena murmured against the thin, blue fingers.

“It is,” Amélie said, her voice strained. “Nothing can help now.”

Tears began to well up in Lena’s eyes. “I can’t lose you like this.”

“Why didn’t you try harder?” Amélie asked.

“I did try, I did,” Lena said as her tears began to fall down her cheeks. “I just didn't know how bad it was. I thought we had more time, Amelie.”

“I thought you loved me, Lena. Why didn’t you save me?”

“I do love you,” Lena said, her voice thick. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed softly against Amélie’s hand. “I do. I’ve tried so hard to save you from everything because I love you. I always have!”

There was no answer to her desperate words. She opened her eyes, dreading the worst, dreading Amélie’s death. But Amélie wasn’t there. Lena was no longer holding her hand. The bed was empty, the sheets made up neatly. Her heart skipped a beat and Lena stepped backwards, her foot finding no purchase. The floor was gone. Lena was falling. She tried to grab hold of something, anything, but there was nothing around her, nothing but emptiness. She inhaled sharply, wanting to scream.

 

Lena woke up. She was tangled in her sheets, lying diagonally across her bed. She had thrown her pillows across the room at some point. Her skin was slick with sweat and her injuries ached. She pressed her fingers to the bandaging on her shoulder and thigh, making sure they were still in place. Satisfied, she searched around for a set of clothes, loose ones so they didn’t press on her wounds.

“What a fucked up dream,” she muttered as she pulled on a pair of running shorts and a baggy shirt.

With her stomach growling, Lena slipped out of her room, intending to raid the kitchen for whatever she could. As she closed her door, she paused and looked at Amélie’s. It had only been a dream, a stupid dream, but maybe if she saw Amélie’s face it would help soothe the nightmares away. Lena stepped over and knocked on Amélie’s door.

“Come in,” came her voice from within.

Lena pushed the door open and stopped in the doorway in surprise, her breath taken from her. Amélie was still lying atop the sheets in a soft, white bed. She knew it was soft despite never having felt it. Amélie was propped up against a pile of pillows, one knee crooked up in the air and her arms spread out against the headboard. She was naked, her blue skin vibrant against the pure white. Her dark hair hung in long, shiny streamers around her shoulders and onto the fabric.

“Are you going to just stand there?” Amélie asked. “I said come in, didn’t I?”

Lena nodded and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her. Her heart fluttered like a bird trapped behind her ribs. When Amélie held up a hand to beckon her over, Lena thought her chest might just burst. Her hands moved to undo her harness, letting her accelerator drop to the floor with a thump. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she hoped the changes they made to it would work but at that moment, all that concerned her was Amélie.

She crawled onto the bed, Amélie’s hands reaching out to grab her and pull her in close. They slid beneath Lena’s shirt, stroking across her skin and pushing the loose fabric up until Lena pulled it off over her head. With free access, Amélie’s hands explored. They traced up and down Lena’s back, along her spine. They moved slowly up Lena’s sides to make her squirm. Fingertips stroked teasingly across Lena’s breasts, drawing a soft whimper from her. Her hands took firm hold of Lena and pulled her down on top of Amélie. Finally, they pinned her down and pressed the knife to Lena’s skin.

Lena never saw the weapon but she felt the cold, sharp metal and knew it for what it was. She looked at Amélie in confusion but Amélie only smirked back at her. The knife pressed harder, cutting into Lena’s skin before plunging into her body. Pain shot through Lena and she screamed in agony, trying to move out of Amélie’s grasp but the hold was too strong.

“You stupid girl,” Amélie snarled, her face an inch from Lena’s. “Did you really think any of this would work?”

Lena could barely focus on the words, her head swimming in pain. She gasped in a breath, hot and shallow. She could feel something was wrong, something important was cut. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t even catch her breath. She tried once more to pull away only for Amélie to jerk on the knife, sending a fresh, sharper wave of pain through Lena’s body.

“You thought you could save me just because you loved me,” Amélie said in a mocking tone. “Little Lena’s going to save everyone with the power of love. All you’ve done is get me where I need to be. Now everyone you’ve loved will suffer because of your foolishness.”

“Please,” Lena whispered, using what little breath she had to beg.

“What a hard lesson to learn, but you brought this on yourself,” Amélie said as she drew the knife out, raising it up for another stab.

 

Lena woke up. Her body ached from top to bottom, her shoulder and thigh the worst. The rest was dull, the soreness of abused muscles and bruised flesh. Her mouth was dry and her tongue felt like it was glued to the roof of her mouth. She opened her eyes slowly, looking around uncertainly. She was in the medbay, stuck in a tiny metal bed with a thin mattress and squished pillow. Most of the lights were off, leaving the room in darkness save for the pool that she lay in.

“You are awake,” Amélie said from next to Lena. She reached a hand out to gently touch the injured woman’s face. “You were starting to worry me.”

“I’m sorry,” Lena rasped.

Amélie raised a brow. “For worrying me? It was not really your choice.”

“For a lot of things,” Lena said.

“Oh,” Amélie said quietly. “We can talk about that another time. For now, I am happy you are awake. I should go get Winston, he wanted to know as soon as you were up.”

Amélie stood to move toward the exit, but Lena raised a hand toward her. Amélie paused and took the offered hand, holding it gently. Lena licked her lips, trying to get them functioning once more. Amélie watched her, quiet but patient, and Lena felt a warmth of happiness over that simple fact.

“Why,” Lena started before coughing softly. “Why did you kiss me?”

Amélie looked surprised, confused, her brow furrowed as she looked down at Lena. She ran her thumb against Lena’s knuckles slowly as she stood there in silence for a few long moments. Finally, she sighed and rolled one shoulder in a shrug. Lena felt her heart begin to sink.

“Because I wanted to,” Amélie said simply as she set Lena’s hand down.

The sinking feeling stopped and Lena offered a small smile. Amélie returned it before she turned to walk to the door. She stepped out of the room only to return a heartbeat later. She hesitated, one hand on the doorframe like she was holding herself up. She shook her head slowly.

“Because I needed to,” she corrected before turning to leave for real this time.

A gentle warmth through her body, replacing the creeping anxiety that had been curling around her chest and stomach. It was soothing feeling strong enough to make her forget about her physical pains for a moment. She settled back against her pillow, sighed in relief, and closed her eyes while she waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Writing Commissions**
> 
>  
> 
> I’d like to open writing commissions, fanfic confined to Overwatch at the moment. They’d be a set amount of words for a set amount (to be determined), available for a variety of topics, styles, and pairings. You can see examples of my writing here on my AO3. Is this something people would be interested in?


	15. Chapter 15

Lena languished in bed. She’d been injured before, but back then there had always been actual doctors and fancy equipment. There had been whatever medical magic the good Doctor Ziegler had cooked up. Lena remembered that healing wounds in no time. But now all she had a woman who shot people for a living, a gorilla with a knack for circuitry, and an A.I. that Lena was certain was using a bad self-diagnosis website as a resource.

They tried, though. Winston and Athena had done a good job patching her up. Amélie had brought Lena anything she needed, from food to books to music. She’d even found an old boardgame in the lounge and played it with Lena for several hours. That had been her favorite day so far, the second day of four now. It didn’t feel like four, it felt like a month. Lena was a woman used to moving fast and not being tethered down so being bedridden didn’t suit her.

Amélie opened the door and peered inside. She smiled when she saw Lena was sitting up and entered the room, shutting the door behind her. She leaned against it and Lena looked her over. She had become more casual in the time since coming to Gibraltar. That was the best way Lena could describe it at least. Today she wore a loose blouse and a pair of shorts that came to her mid-thigh, not the sort of thing Lena had imagined seeing the blue-skinned assassin in. She looked like a normal person, not a weapon. Maybe it was simply necessity since she didn’t have any other clothes. These were ones that had been left behind in the compound, but so were the other pants and long-sleeved shirts she had been wearing originally. It was a nice change, though Lena found herself struggling not to stare at those long legs.

“I did not expect you to be awake,” Amélie said.

Lena huffed softly. “I can only sleep so much.”

“I suppose that is true,” Amélie said with a smile. She stepped over to stand beside the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“I hurt everywhere and I’m bored out of my skull,” Lena sighed. “Whisk me away to somewhere more interesting, Amélie.”

“You are not to be whisked until you are healed,” Amélie said. “Wounds like yours take a while to heal but you will be able to walk in a few days. Soon you will be underfoot again, souris.”

“It’s been days already. I’m sick of laying here,” Lena muttered.

Amélie sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “This is the price you pay for running off like you did. It sounds mean, yes, but there are consequences, Lena.”

Lena blinked in surprise, the words stinging. “I did it for you.”

“I know that. You had good intentions but that does not make the consequences go away,” Amélie said gently. She reached a hand over to rest it on Lena’s arm. “I am grateful for your insistence in helping, but I wish that you had gone about it in a way that did not end with you bleeding to death on the floor.”

Lena dropped her gaze, looking down at Amélie’s hand. She reached over to lay her own atop that blue skin. It was cool still. No matter how far Amélie seemed to get away from her old conditioning, she never got any warmer. She had said it was physical, something they had done to her body that might not ever be undone. Lena still hoped, though. So much had changed, why not that? Amélie’s skin was unique, there was no doubt about it, but Lena still wondered what it would be like to not have goosebumps every time they touched.

“I don’t want to lose you, not after everything,” Lena said quietly.

“It is cruel of me, I know,” Amélie said. Her hand gently squeezed Lena’s arm. “I would not do it if I could help it. If there was some chance, but we have found nothing. I am so tired, Lena. And would you prefer to spend time with me here, comfortable and safe? Or would you prefer to spend the last of my days scrounging in old Talon bases?”

Lena shook her head. “I’d prefer your last days to be sixty years from now.”

“So would I, souris,” Amélie sighed. “We cannot always get what we want. But even so, you have given me more than I expected. Living like I did under Talon was not the way anyone should live. Even if it is only a short time, I am glad for it.”

“I guess I am too,” Lena said after a moment. “I wouldn’t have gotten to kiss you otherwise.”

Amélie chuckled softly. “Was it really so exciting?”

“I just feel like there’s more we can do. We can’t give up yet. We shouldn’t ever give up,” Lena said as she wrapped her fingers around Amélie’s hand. “We can call the others. What if we call Doctor Ziegler? If anyone can help, it’s her. Winston has done a lot but he’s not a doctor.”

Amélie tensed and pulled her hand free from Lena’s grasp. “I do not think that is a good idea, Lena.”

Lena drew her legs up to her chest, frowning. “Why not? They could help.”

“They would not be as understanding as you have been,” Amélie explained.

“But if you just explained everything...” Lena started.

Amélie cut her off, putting her hands on Lena’s shoulders and squeezing firmly, her yellow gaze locking with Lena’s. “I know you are not so naive as that. You are not a child. Not everything is fixed the way you wish it were. You know this. I know you know this. So, please, for my sake, please, listen to me.”

Lena sighed heavily and slumped back against her pillows. “It worked with me, didn’t it?”

“Maybe, but you are not them. You are Lena and you are different,” Amélie said, brushing a hand through Lena’s hair. “They will not be so ready to forgive the things I have done, the people I have hurt or killed.”

“I think Angela would help,” Lena said obstinately. “She’s a doctor, she has to help. Those’re the rules for her.”

Amélie sighed and dropped her hands away. “I will think about it, how is that?” she said as she stood up. “By the time you are better, I will decide.”

Lena reached out and grabbed Amélie’s fingers, squeezing them. Amélie looked down, watching Lena’s smaller hands as he ran her thumb lightly against Lena’s warm skin. Lena leaned up from her pillows, shifting herself closer to the edge of the bed. Amélie tensed, taking an uncertain half step backwards. Lena’s eyes went wide before she dropped her gaze, her hand loosening on Amélie’s. A guilty jolt ran through Amélie’s stomach, an unpleasant feeling she’d not had to deal with in a long time. It made her queasy. She quickly tightened her grip on Lena’s fingers.

“I promise. I will think about it. I will even talk to Winston, if that helps,” Amélie said softly, bending down to kiss the top of Lena’s head.

“Stay with me a bit longer?” Lena asked in a whisper.

“I cannot,” Amélie said as she drew back. “I have to go have my checkup with Athena. I’ll come back tonight, alright? Get some sleep, you will heal faster.”

“All I’ve done is sleep,” Lena said with a sigh.

“I know, but I promise it helps,” Amélie said, giving one last squeeze to Lena’s fingers. “The sooner you are healed, the sooner I have to decide, remember?”

Lena smiled faintly and settled back on her bed again, pulling the blankets up around her chest. Her side ached beneath her bandages, but Amélie was right. Lena watched Amélie leave the room, the door clicking shut behind her. Alone again and with nothing else to do, Lena closed her eyes and began trying to sleep. She used to be better at it, her time in the military training her to sleep whenever she needed. But being untethered from time seemed to have stolen that skill from her. She slowed her breathing and waited.

 

Amélie lay on the hard metal of the examination table, her eyes closed against the bright lights that shone down on her. There was a lot to try and ignore. The uncomfortableness of her position, the needles in her arm, and the heat of the lights were the most prominent. She’d dealt with worse, she could handle it easily, but that didn’t mean she liked it.

“Athena?” she asked.

“Just a few more minutes,” the A.I. said.

“No, I had a question,” Amélie said. “Lena wants to contact former members of Overwatch to try and help me. Doctor Ziegler in particular. Is it a good idea?”

There was a silence that Amélie knew was the A.I. contemplating. Finally, Athena spoke up. “I’m not certain I’m the one to ask. Perhaps Winston instead?”

“No, I do not wish to. He is much more emotional about it,” Amélie said, cracking her eye open to peer up at the system screen above her. “You are more logical.”

“But people aren’t logical, Amélie,” Athena said, her symbol flickering on the display. “They won’t act the way I think they should.”

Amélie closed her eyes and tried to adjust her position on the table without moving enough to throw off the scans. “I will ask Winston as well. How do you think they should act?”

“I believe they should understand that what you did wasn’t your choice,” Athena explained. “I understand they would be angry, but their anger should be toward Talon. They are the reason you did the things you did. I think Doctor Ziegler would help you, unhappily, but she would. It’s what she does.”

Amélie sighed. “And the others?”

“They would be angry at you, they would try to hurt you or kill you,” Athena said, her voice the same even tone. “You would still be the enemy to them and I don’t know that you can change that.”

“Even with Lena trying to say otherwise?” Amélie asked.

“Even with Lena. She is loved but she is known to be optimistic,” Athena said.

“She sees the good in everyone even when there is none,” came the deep voice of Winston from somewhere Amélie couldn’t see.

“Are you saying there is no good in me?” Amélie asked with a frown.

Winston huffed as he came into view. “There was, back before everything. But I don’t know that Talon didn’t remove it all.”

Amélie’s frown turned into a scowl. “Have I done anything to hurt you or Lena since I came here?”

“No, not yet,” the gorilla said.

Amélie watched him, her hands clenching into fists. He wouldn’t even look at her when he spoke, when he accused her. She had done nothing but help, she had kept Lena safe. She would risk her life for Lena, but still she was seen with nothing but suspicion. Athena was right and so was Amélie in what she had said to Lena, but that didn’t take the sting out of it. Being right wasn’t always a great thing.

She wanted to argue more, but there was no reason to. The point had been made and it was correct. If anyone other than Lena had been the one with her when the conditioning had worn off, she’d have been hauled off to some court to face trial. Maybe even worse, they’d have killed her as soon as they were able. The most painful thing about it was that she wasn’t sure that was the wrong thing. It had been Talon’s fault, Talon’s torture that had made her the way she was but it was still her finger that pulled the trigger over and over again. Did her lack of autonomy, of personality and existence mean anything in the face of so much death? The needles retracted from her arm, back into the brace that housed them. The scanning sensors pulled back and the lights flicked off, signalling that she was free. Amélie sat up and wiped away the droplets of dark blood on her skin. Winston ignored her, back to her as he faced the screens filled with her medical data. Amélie stretched and her muscles protested angrily.

“How long was I here? It feels like forever,” she asked.

“Three hours,” Athena answered.

“That long?” Amélie said in surprise as she stood up.

“I gave you a mild sedative at the start to help,” Athena explained. “I knew it was going to be a long wait for you.”

“Tell me that next time. I am not fond of being drugged without my knowledge. It is a little too familiar,” Amélie said. She reached her hand up to rub at the needle marks on her arm, trying to ignore the tense feeling in the back of her mind.

“My apologies, I forget those sorts of things. This isn’t really what I’m made to do,” Athena said, her tone the exact same.

“Any change?” Amélie asked.

Winston grunted in a distracted response, still looking through the information on the screen. He opened windows and documents, closing them just as quickly. Above his main monitor, Athena was scrolling data down various other screens. Finally, Winston sat back and let out a sigh.

“No real change,” he said. “You’re pretty much in the same shape as you were last time and the time before that. You should be thankful, no progress means we have longer to figure something out.”

Amélie closed her eyes, a small wave of relief washing over her. “Do you think we can find a cure?”

Winston looked back at her, peering over his spectacles. “Do you want my honest opinion?”

There was a moment of hesitation before Amélie nodded.

“No, I don’t,” he said bluntly. “Not without finding out how they did this to you. Not without someone who knows medicine.”

“Someone like Doctor Ziegler,” she said with a sigh.

Winston looked at her suspiciously for a moment. “Yes, someone like her. Athena and I aren’t doctors.”

“Lena wants to contact her, I do not know if she has told you,” Amélie said.

“She has,” Winston said with a frown. “More than once.”

“You do not think that is a good idea, I can tell,” she said as she walked around to the other side of the table.

Winston shook his head, turning back to his screen. “It’s complicated.”

“She would help but then others would know about me, others who would not be so compelled to be so altruistic,” Amélie said. “Is that what makes it complicated?”

“More or less,” he grunted. “And no matter what I feel about you, I promised Lena I would help keep you safe. And that means not pulling in anyone who might have a reason to hurt you.”

“Then we all understand,” she said. “You, Athena, and myself. But not Lena.”

“She is too optimistic,” Athena chimed in.

Amélie nodded in agreement before she turned and walked away, leaving the two to their data. She made her way back through the halls toward the barracks, glancing out the windows. The sun had nearly set, hanging onto the horizon like a person dangling from a cliff. It would slip and fall soon enough. She hadn’t intended to spend so long under examination. She owed Lena a board game or two before bed.

First, she needed a shower. She slipped into the bathroom down the hall from her room and turned on the water. She had been surprised the facility had functioning water systems. The fact that they actually had hot water had just been the cherry on top. There was nothing better than standing under the water after an overly long session of examination. It washed away the feeling of grime on her skin. It was entirely imagined, she knew that, but there was something about the smell of the alcohol swab and the medical smell of the injections that made her feel gross.

Feeling refreshed and clean, she slipped down the hall to her room. She didn’t bother to dress, there was no one to see her even if she cared, wearing only a towel. Her long hair fell in damp ropes down her back. Inside her room, she sat and took the time to carefully dry it and brush it out until it was soft and shining.

It was late by the time she had finished. Time had slipped away from her again, though it was her fault this time. Amélie stared at her clock for a moment, chewing her bottom lip in thought. She did promise and Lena wouldn’t forget. Lena never forgot. Amélie stood to get dressed and paused in thought. She never actually promised she’d play a game with Lena. She pulled on the sheer robe she had found abandoned in one of the rooms. She thought it might have been Ana Amari’s, as awkward as that would be. The fabric was white and it cut a deep V down her chest, nearly to her navel. A nervous smile played across Amélie’s lips as she opened the door.

 

Lena thought it was a dream at first. She was hovering in the fuzzy area just before deeper sleep when she heard the door open. Footsteps followed or, at least, her dream said there were footsteps. They were soft against the bare floor, almost too light to hear in her half asleep state. There was a long pause between them, as if the person taking the steps was hesitant. It wasn’t until she felt the weight settle onto her mattress that she realized it wasn’t a dream.

Eyes snapping open, Lena tried to sit up only to feel a hand press against her shoulder. She blinked, looking blearily into the dark of the bedroom, barely able to make out the shape of a person sitting next to her. The hand on her shoulder was cool to the touch, enough so that she could feel it through the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

“Amélie?” she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

“Forgive me,” Amélie said softly. “I did not think you would be asleep.”

“It’s, no, you’re fine,” Lena muttered, rubbing her fist against her eye. “Something the matter?”

Amélie was quiet for a long moment before she shook her head. She pressed her hand firmer to Lena, gently pushing her back to lay down again.

“Nothing, no. I promised I would come back to see you after my examination,” she explained as she shifted to look at Lena head on. “It took much longer to finish than I thought.”

Lena chewed her lip uncertainly, watching the shadowed shape of Amélie. She reached up to lay her fingers on the bare blue skin of Amélie’s wrist, feeling the woman reflexively tense up. Lena stroked her hand slowly along her arm, caressing gently until Amélie relaxed again. 

“It’s late, we can do it tomorrow,” Lena said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to take the time now.”

Amélie hesitated, her body tense and hunched away from Lena. There was uncertainty, worry, maybe even fear in the lines of her body. Lena didn’t press her or pull her, waiting quietly for Amélie to decide what they were doing. She let out a small sigh of relief when Amélie turned toward her again. That relief was quickly replaced by surprise when her eyes finished adjusting to the dark and Amélie moved closer. Lena realized the other woman was all but naked.

“Amélie, you uh...you…”

“Is it a problem?” Amélie asked, sounding genuinely concerned as she moved herself over Lena instead of next to her. “I can...I will leave if it is.”

Her hand slipped under the hem of Lena’s shirt, at her waist, cool fingers moving across the lines of muscle she found there. Lena inhaled sharply, both at the temperature and in surprise at the sudden affection. Lena shook her head, unable to find the words or make her mouth work properly.

“Good, I am glad,” Amélie said with a smile.

She leaned down over Lena, moving her hand up as she did and tugging Lena’s shirt up with it. Her body was as cool as her hands, stomach and chest pressing down against the awestruck woman below her. Goosebumps raced across Lena’s skin, as much in excitement as anything else. Her eyes slipped shut as Amélie’s lips pressed against her own. Her hands found Amélie’s waist and held tightly, not wanting to let go or let the moment end. She worried that it would end like the last time, with Amélie leaving her in fear. But when Amélie drew back, breaking the kiss, she looked down into Lena’s eyes.

“I will be careful. I know you still hurt,” Amélie said.

“It’s okay, you aren’t hurting me,” Lena said in a breathy voice. “Please kiss me again.”

Amélie leaned down and Lena closed her eyes in anticipation. She could feel Amélie’s breath on her skin before her cool lips place a light, playful kiss against the tip of Lena’s nose. She drew away, leaving Lena to blink in confusion, moving down the injured woman’s body. Leaning down and with Lena’s shirt bunched up under her arms, Amélie pressed her lips to Lena’s chest. She fulfilled the request, placing a line of kisses back and forth across Lena’s breasts. Her cool lips sent shivers of pleasure and chill through Lena’s body and she squirmed beneath the attention.

Lena ran her hand over Amélie’s shoulder and through her hair, desperate to hold onto her new, sudden lover in any way she could. Amélie propped herself up with one arm, leaning against Lena’s pillow. Her fingertips brushed against the side of Lena’s face, incidental to her main attentions. Lena turned her head, arching up on her shoulders slightly, and began to place lingering kisses against those blue fingers. She needed to reciprocate in some way, she needed something to do with the feelings rising inside her chest. To contrast the cold of her lover, her own skin grew hotter. She warmed on the outside and within, her blood running hot, her brain lost in a shimmer of warmth. Pleasure mingled with the sudden end to anticipation, the sweet relief that came when hopes and long dreams were fulfilled. It had been years, so many years, since Lena had fallen in love with Amélie. So many years of fantasy and desires and hopes all came to fruition and Lena felt overwhelmed.

Squirming against the bed as the sensations slowly became too much, she shoved the blankets off her legs to try and cool herself down. It worked, for a moment, until the swirl of pleasure escalated. Lena gasped in shock and delight as Amélie ran the tip of her tongue from Lena’s navel to up between her breasts. Her hand found Amélie’s arm and gripped tightly.

“Please, Amélie,” she whispered.

Amélie looked up at her and smiled, her yellow eyes bright even in the gloom. “Yes, Lena? What do you need?”

“What do I need?” Lena repeated before she laughed. It was a soft, breathy laugh, born from the strangeness of the whole situation. The unexpectedness of it all. “Anything. Everything. You. I need you, Amélie.”

“As you wish,” Amélie said.

The blue-skinned woman pulled herself more fully onto the bed, stretching her longer frame out beside Lena. She was careful, gentle as she nudged Lena over, not wanting to hurt her any. Lena shivered again, now a familiar feeling in response to the sensation of having Amélie against her. She moved how Amélie wanted, lifting her head so an arm could be slipped under her neck, shifting her hips when they were nudged against.

Amélie’s hand brushed down against Lena’s stomach, caressing across the tight skin and firm abs. The two pressed closely, their faces near enough that they almost touched noses. Lena stared into Amélie’s arms, not wanting to break their gaze. Amélie seemed intent on holding it, searching within Lena’s brown eyes for something. She must have found it because she smiled and her hand began to move. Her fingers moved down along Lena’s inner thigh, brushing teasingly in light patterns. Lena shifted, her body unable to stay still. Her lips parted as she gasped and panted. The warmth in her body, that bright and hot sense of relief and passion exploded into a pyre of need. 

Their noses touched, the tips brushing lightly as they pressed even closer to each other. Amélie leaned in as if she intended to kiss Lena, but stopped just short. Their lips brushed lightly as the quivering of Lena’s body rocked her slightly closer with each wave. Lena wanted to beg Amélie, to end the teasing but she couldn’t find her voice. She panted and whined softly until she couldn’t take anymore. Silently, desperately, she mouthed the word “please” against Amélie’s lips, silently pleading. Amélie smiled as she looked into Lena’s eyes. Her hand slid up, too slowly, until her fingers finally went where Lena needed them most.

Lena could do little more than whimper. Her body was taut and warm, warm enough to make Amélie’s touch feel like ice. Slowly, steadily under Amélie’s attentions, the tautness began to uncoil. Her body relaxed, molding itself against Amélie’s as they pressed together. Her breathing became ragged panting and her eyes began to flutter shut. Finally, she found her voice and she was glad, for the first time, that the building was empty. No one but Amélie got to hear her as she cried out in pleasure- as she called out Amélie’s name.

Amélie stroked gently as Lena sank down into the afterglow. She kissed along Lena’s jaw and neck, soft and soothing, as the smaller woman lay panting and gasping for breath. Her hand laid against her lover’s chest to feel it rise and fall, heavy and fast at first. When it had slowed, Amélie sat back up and smiled down at her.

“That was--you’re amazing,” Lena said softly. “I’ve wanted to do this for so long.”

Amélie chuckled softly. “I am glad you enjoyed yourself.”

“I want more. I want to make you feel the same,” Lena said, starting to sit up. “Please?”

“Lie back down,” Amélie said as she gently pushed Lena back down. “God knows this would be how you open your wounds back up. How will we explain that?”

“But I want--”

“I know what you want,” Amélie shushed, placing a finger to Lena’s lips. “I did not say you would not get it. Be patient.”

Lena kissed Amélie’s finger before she nodded. Amélie moved carefully, not wanting to nudge Lena’s injured side any. She knelt above Lena, straddling her midsection. Lena’s eyes began to wander, trying to take all of Amélie in now that she was on display. The robe was small enough that it barely reached her mid-thigh and anytime Amélie moved, it liked to shift higher up. The fabric clung tightly to Amélie’s breasts, her dark, stiff nipples visible through it as Lena stared. Lena began to reach her hands up needily before Amélie grabbed her gently by both wrists. 

With a smile, Amélie settled herself down lightly, sitting on Lena’s hips. She guided Lena’s hands where Amélie wanted them most, starting with her hips. Lena’s fingers played, grasping at the fabric but her hands were pulled upwards to Amélie’s waist. Lena looked up, brow furrowed as she asked a silent question. Amélie nodded in response and Lena quickly grasped the loose ends of the robe’s tie. She pulled them free, undoing the simple knot, and the robe loosened, quickly starting to slide down Amélie’s shoulders.

Amélie drew Lena’s hands upwards again, sliding them up her stomach until they came to her now bare breasts. She let go of Lena’s wrists as she slipped the rest of the way out of the robe and tossed it aside. Lena took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She moved her fingers slowly, tracing and touching and exploring that beautiful blue skin as long as she could. Amélie hummed in pleasure before taking hold of one of Lena’s wrists again. This time she guided it down and down, slowly along the length of her body before sliding Lena’s hand between her thighs.

Lena gasped softly and Amélie let out a quiet sigh of pleasure. Lena lay there, staring and suddenly feeling uncertain. Her fingers began to move, slowly and clumsily. A flush of delight and embarrassment rose across her skin, but Amélie said nothing. She kept a loose hold on Lena’s wrist, her hips shifting slightly as if to encourage. Her breathing began to increase little by little under Lena’s attention.

“It is alright,” Amélie said, making Lena blush darker. “I want this. I want you, Lena. Please?”

Lena nodded and took a breath to steady herself. It was silly to be so nervous now after everything. Lena looked up at Amélie, watching her face, as she pressed her fingers inward. The grip on Lena’s wrist tightened as Amélie moaned, the most beautiful sound Lena had ever heard. Her back arched and her head bowed, body quivering even from that small touch. Lena reached up to stroke Amélie’s cheek with her free hand.

Amélie began to sink downward as Lena stroked within her. It was as if her body was slowly becoming too heavy for her. Her hair fell around them like a curtain as she panted and moaned, gasping for breath. Lena’s fingers buried within those impossibly long locks, letting the silky hair wrap around her fingers. She gently pulled Amélie downward, but the woman needed little encouragement. Their gazes locked, their noses touched, their lips brushed until finally they were kissing again. Amélie shuddered and squirmed against Lena, pinning her down onto the bed. Her body tightened, tensing until her muscles felt like steel cables. She moaned deeply into the kiss, her hands finding their way to Lena’s short hair to slip her fingers into it. They grasped tightly, almost painfully, for a moment before her body stiffened. She broke the kiss as her lips parted, trying to gasp in a breath she couldn’t seem to find. Her body shuddered, shaking and twitching against Lena’s until she finally went still.

Pulling back just barely from Lena’s lips, Amélie panted heavily to calm herself. Lena watched her, taking in the messy, disheveled look of her lover. The ragged breaths and the light sheen of sweat on her blue skin, the tangle of her hair around them, the shaky and unsteady look in her eyes. Lena traced a finger along Amélie’s jaw, pulling her attention back. Amélie smiled as she leaned back down, pressing her lips to Lena’s once more. They kissed softly, sweetly, the tender kiss of new lovers. It deepened quickly, lips moving with passion and hunger. Lena wrapped her arms around Amélie, pulling the taller woman down on top of her fully. Their bodies pressed together, warm and cool, as they sank into their pleasure.


	16. Chapter 16

Amélie slipped out of the room while Lena still slept, closing the door gently behind her. It wasn’t that she wanted to run away from Lena or pretend things hadn’t happened, but she needed a moment to think. Lena’s persistent upbeat attitude and air of certainty sometimes made it difficult for Amélie to sort through her own thoughts. It was still early enough that Winston would be asleep as well, giving Amélie the run of the place. She made her way to the mess hall, put on a pot of coffee, and sat down with a sigh when she had poured herself a cup.

“What did I do?” she asked herself.

She had slept with Lena, that was clear enough. She hadn’t been coaxed or convinced by Lena. She had gone to the other woman with every intention of making love to her. That wasn’t to say Lena had never tried to convince her. There had been plenty of times the small, sporty woman had flirted blatantly over the preceding few months. Amélie had always deflected the attentions or even just ignored them. Not that she hadn’t thought about it. Perhaps not out of an emotional sense, but certainly from a purely physical standpoint she had considered. But she had always avoided the opportunities. Maybe out of obligation to staying focused. Maybe out of guilt. There was certainly plenty to be guilty over.

Gérard. Thinking the name made her fingers tighten around her mug. It hadn’t been her fault what happened, had it? She had been under their control by that point. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, hadn’t even known she had been. But she did, she did more than that. He was dead by her hand and her hands ached at the thought of what they had done. But would he have wanted her to feel forever guilty for what she had done? Would he want her to languish? She didn’t think so. The Gérard she knew would have wanted her to get revenge, to show Talon her wrath. She had done that, in a roundabout way. More than that, something inside her told her that he would understand. She didn’t have much time, she didn’t know just how much was left, she thought she should be allowed some comfort before then. She thought he would agree with that.

That was really what it was in the end. More than a lust or a physical desire, it was a sense of comfort. The closeness to another person, the quiet intimacy was something gentle and soothing. It helped against the fear and the worry. It was a calming touch to her frayed nerves that let her think clearly again. She smiled down at her coffee. She sort of wished she had done it sooner. Maybe she’d have come to better conclusions sooner than she did. But that wouldn’t have been fair to herself or to Lena. Leading the poor woman on like that would have been devastating. She would have latched on like the lost girl she was and only would have ended up hurt. It was better that they had waited. Waited until…

Waited until what? Amélie blinked a few times and inhaled sharply, feeling as if she had stopped breathing. Until she had been more comfortable? That was a certainty. There would have been no intimacy without feeling sure. But how many times had she entertained the possibility, thought of what it might be like to be in bed with Lena? Too many to comfortably admit. She had been certain of that desire, comfortable with it for a little while now. Until she had been certain Lena would accept things? She would never be. Until there was no time left for real commitments? She didn’t think she was that cruel. Her mind wound slowly around the point she was avoiding, not wanting to admit to the idea. But her thoughts were like water down a drain, spiraling inward until she gasped, her eyes going wide.

“Oh god, I think I--”

The door banged open, making Amélie jump and nearly spilled her coffee. Winston walked in, yawning hugely as he did. He made his way over to the cabinets, finding his usual bananas and peanut butter before sitting down next to her. He didn’t say anything for a few moments, the time passing in silence between them. Amélie’s thoughts had been scattered and she drank her coffee, standing to get herself a fresh cup.

“I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last night,” Winston said finally. “I realized that I’ve been unfair. I have trouble trusting you or believing you, but if anyone else was in this position, I’d have called Angela already.”

Amélie paused in the middle of stirring sugar into her coffee. “You want to call her then? You think it is a good idea?”

“No, I don’t,” he said with a huff. “Mercy will help, but once she knows, everyone will know. Even if she refuses to tell, Fareeha will.”

“Fareeha?” Amélie asked.

“Ana Amari’s daughter,” Winston clarified.

That made Amélie’s blood run colder than normal. She coughed softly as she sat down. “I had forgotten she had a daughter. It has been a long time. What is she doing with Doctor Ziegler?”

“I think they’re, uh, together,” Winston said gruffly, tapping his fingers on his jar of peanut butter. “I don’t know that she has anything particularly against you besides that you were Talon.”

“Well, that leaves me with two choices, does it not?” Amélie said, trying to keep her tone light. “I die without knowing or I try to save myself but risk being punished for my past.”

“What is your choice?” Winston asked, looking over at her.

“I think Lena would prefer I try to stay alive,” Amélie said with a smile. “I think maybe we should call her.”

Winston sat for a moment before he nodded. His attention turned back to his breakfast and Amélie sipped at her coffee. She felt light headed. She had fully intended to avoid this, to avoid the possibility of others knowing where she was. Her thoughts all turned to Lena, to the way Lena looked at her and watched her. She remembered the warmth and softness of Lena curled up in her arms. She thought about the gentle, sweet woman who smiled every time she saw Amélie. What choice did she really have anymore? Though she thought Lena might be the only one who would support the decision.

“Can I ask you something?” Amélie asked, breaking the silence.

Winston blinked out of his own thoughts and looked over at her. “Hm? What is it?”

“I was wondering why you let me stay here,” she said, looking down at her coffee. 

“That’s simple,” he said with a short laugh. “It was because of Lena. I thought you were lying about everything you said. I still wonder if you still are, sometimes. I almost called the others to let them know we had you.”

Amélie stared at him a moment. She couldn’t really blame him. “Why did you decide not to?”

“Lena,” he said again. “She trusted you. She wanted to prove she was right. She convinced me to wait a few days before calling and then a few more and a few more. By the time she stopped, you two were fighting Talon and things were too complicated to bring in anyone who might have known what to do with you.” He paused and shook his head. “Now that I think about it, that’s basically Reinhardt and Angela. I’m having a tough time finding the others.”

“Well, once you do, you can go ahead and call them to come get me,” she said with a note of amusement in her voice. “And deal with the wrath of Lena.”

Winston chuckled, a low rumble in his large chest. It rose up into a full laugh as he considered her words. Amélie smiled as she watched. She’d never heard the gorilla laugh before, nor heard him sound so relaxed near her. It was a nice change from the constant animosity. She couldn’t blame him on that either. Not after all she had done.

“Ah, you’re right,” Winston said when he laughter faded. “I’d rather face Talon than Lena’s--”

The rest of his words were lost in the deafening roar of an explosion. Across the room from them, the windows looking out on the airship pads shattered inward. Fire and thick, black smoke flooded into the room. The shockwave sent chairs flying and knocked the two backwards across the floor. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, Amélie crawled across the floor under instinct, tossing herself down behind an overturned table.

Even as the noise of the explosion faded, a new growl took its place. The smoke in the room began to billow, spinning and twisting as it was blown about by the engines of a jet. It cleared enough for her to see Winston hunched like she was, trying to hide his bulk behind a table. She stared at him until he looked over and offered a curt nod to indicate he wasn’t hurt. She returned it and the both of them carefully peered around the edges of their barricades. They watched a plane settle down on the tarmac, it’s doors opening to allow a swarm of black-clad Talon agents to exit. Amélie turned her head to stare sharply at Winston as the enemy began to creep forward.

“We have to go,” she hissed as loudly as she dared. “I am unarmed.”

Winston nodded, looking out at the soldiers. “Me first.”

Before she could ask why, Winston let loose a roar of his own, bellowing as he stood up. All of the Talon agents immediately turned to face him, weapons raised. Winston smashed a fist into the table that had been shielding him and sent it flying toward the agents. It clattered toward them, forcing a few of them to move out of the way. Winston began to run and the first shot rang out, missing and punching into the wall behind Amélie. The massive gorilla barreled forward, knocking furniture to the side, sending it flying toward the enemy. Caught off guard, the soldiers scattered to avoid the tables and chairs, only firing a few more shots.

While their attention was focused on Winston, Amélie shot out from her hiding spot at a dead sprint. She wove her way through the tables, arms pumping hard at her sides. She didn’t look back to see if Winston made it. She didn’t even look back when the Talon soldiers began to shout at her. She burst through the open doorway into the hall beyond as the first gunshots rang out and the bullets buried themselves in the wall. She nearly fell over as she turned a corner, her feet sliding on the smooth, clean floor. She managed to stay upright and slowed down as much as she dared, making her way to the small armory where she kept her gun.

It was there waiting for her when she arrived, sitting exactly as she’d left it. She grabbed it, loaded it, and strapped on a belt with a few extra magazines. She hadn’t counted how many had piled out of the plane, so she didn’t know how many shots she might need. She cursed herself for that. It was a mistake born of surprise, but a mistake all the same.

She waited to hear if anyone had followed her. They seemed likely to split up, to go after the both of them, but perhaps they thought Winston was the most dangerous. That might have even been true inside the confines of the watchpoint. Confident she had a few moments more, she picked up her mask and strapped it on. She clicked a button on the side and the sections closed in over her eyes, the red sensors flickering to life.

“Ah, there you are,” she said softly.

Around her, she could make out the shapes of everyone inside the building. They glowed red, made visible by some improbable mix of technologies that she couldn’t begin to understand. All that mattered was it worked. She found Winston easily enough, surrounded by enough Talon agents that they started to merge together in her sight. A quick count, with a small guess, placed it at somewhere around twenty soldiers in the compound, most near Winston in his lab. She glanced behind her, toward the barracks and her room. She could see the shape of Lena, standing and moving. Amélie bit her lip as she wondered if she should go get Lena, protect her. There was no time. Grabbing her grappling hook, Amélie left the armory and ran through the building until she burst outside.

She was behind the plane and down the compound from Winston’s lab. She quickly grappled herself up to a catwalk and brought her rifle up, peering through the scope. The gorilla had managed, thankfully, to put most of his gear on before Talon got to him. She watched him throw huge punches with his one massive hand all while holding his tesla cannon in the other. He fired it at any soldier dumb enough to get close. They didn’t seem to know what to do with him, especially now that his gear seemingly let him shrug off gunfire.

Amélie tried to track through the chaos she was watching, trying to get a bead on any of the Talon agents. The massive form of Winston thrashed around in the way, eclipsing their shapes. This was what she was good at, though. This was who she had been for so long. She took a breath and held it, lined her sights up, and squeezed the trigger. A hole appeared in the window of the lab, cracks spider-webbing out from it, and a soldier collapsed in a spray of red.

Winston stared back at her in shock for a moment before his attention was pulled back toward his aggressors. As she began to line up another shot, a loud whir of machinery cut through the noise of the idling jet. Amélie glanced over in time to see a turret on the aircraft lock onto her, the barrels beginning to spin. She scrambled across the catwalk, away from the jet and the lab, as the bullets began to rip into the concrete of the building. Sharp chips of it stung against her skin like dozens of angry hornets as she stumbled out of the way, sliding around a corner of the building and out of line of sight.

There was no time to relax. She edged back the way she had come, creeping along the steel grate. She hit the button on her mask again, turning the thermal sensors back on. She knew the turret would be waiting for her. She’d only have one shot. She could see the gunner, sitting just inside the doorway. If she could just move a bit further, if she could just get a better angle. There was nothing else to do. Amélie thrust herself out into the open and fired as quickly as she could. Bullets sprayed into the wall next to her, barely missing, and she continued her momentum out into empty air. The turret stopped as she tumbled downward. Her grappling hook shot out, hooking onto the metal walkway, letting her swing down safely. She hit the ground and her knees buckled, sending her tumbling across the asphalt.

She swore as she scraped across the ground. Her legs felt heavy. All of her felt heavy. Amélie struggled to her feet and felt relief that the turret hadn’t tracked her movements. It still pointed up where she had been. Her shot had been enough. Above her, she heard a loud roar of anger as the lab window shattered, a Talon body crashing through it and down to the ground. Winston followed, landing so hard on the man that he cracked his helmet in half.

“Not going well?” Amélie asked, trying to tease. Her muscles resisted as she stepped closer to the gorilla. She could see blood on his fur. “What now?”

“I needed space. How many can you take out?” he asked her.

A handful of the Talon soldiers had gathered at the window, a few of them hooking up cables where they could. Amélie brought her rifle up and began to fire. Her shots came in a steady rhythm, the smooth firing of an expert. One by one, the agents fell and tumbled down the side of the lab to the rocks below. Five had stood there and five died. She breathed a sigh of relief as she lowered her weapon. At least she could still manage that part.

“How many left?” she asked.

“Enough,” Winston answered. “Get ready for them.”

He took a defensive posture in front of her, partially shielding her from whatever might be coming. She knelt down to aim around him, watching and waiting for any sign of movement. When something did move, it didn’t come from the right where she expected it. It came from the left. It was a flutter of white cloth and a pale blue light. Amélie focused her scope on it and swore loudly.

“No, how? How could they have?” she whispered.

Lena was dragged into the open in the hands of a Talon agent. Her eyes were nearly closed, her eyelids drooping down. Her pale skin was white as a sheet, harshly bright under the lights of the room. A bright red stain of blood had spread across her stomach where she had torn her stitches open again. The man who held her was smart and dragged her limp frame up in front of himself as a human shield.

Amélie tried to find the shot, afraid to hit Lena. Her arms were tired as they propped up her rifle, her aim slipping down while she struggled to hold the weight of the gun. She squeezed the trigger, her bullet tearing a hole through the neck of a soldier next to Lena. Blood sprayed across her and her captor, staining her even further red. Winston glared back at her and Amélie quickly lowered her weapon with shaking hands.

The massive gorilla started forward only to be brought up short when one of the Talon agents jammed a gun into Lena’s face. Amélie couldn’t see his expression but his body tensed in silent and impotent rage. He could do nothing without risking Lena, nor could Amélie. She grit her teeth hard enough that she thought they might crack. Her weapon rattled in her hands and she gripped it tightly to get them to stop shaking. She should have paid more attention. She should have stayed back with Lena, she should have done more to keep her safe. How had they even found her? What did they want with her? Wasn’t she the one they wanted back, not Lena? The Talon agents gave no hints as to what they were planning. They moved silently, dragging the unconscious Lena back to the plane.

The soldiers carefully climbed back into the aircraft, doing everything they could to deny Amélie a clean shot. The door slammed shut. The engines roared as they woke back up. Slowly, the plane lifted off the tarmac and turned to fly over the ocean, back toward land. Amélie stood, watching in shock until Winston roughly shook her. Before the plane had even left sight, they were back in what passed for the command room those days, pulling up a map. Lena was gone. They had to get her back.

Amélie smashed her fist down hard against the table, ignoring the rush of pain. It helped to clear her head, to help her focus. Winston looked at her dully, his gaze washed out with worry and fear for Lena. Amélie took a breath, trying to calm herself as best she could.

”Get the plane ready” she said softly. “I know where they’re going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

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> No matter what, thank you for reading!


	17. Chapter 17

"How can you know where they're going?" Winston asked with a frown.

Amelie didn't answer. She swept her hand across the table, bringing up a map of Europe on its surface. She zoomed in again and again until it focused down on a small town in France. Whereas the last one had been dead and abandoned, this one was still very much alive. Amelie knew the secret, though. Beneath the quaint flower-lined streets was a festering fortress filled with the ranks of Talon. She tapped a slender finger on the image.

"Here," she said."

"How do you know?" Winston asked again.

Amelie hesitated, letting the moment spiral into an uncomfortable silence. Finally, she sighed. "It is where they used to take me. To refresh my programming."

"No, they wouldn't," Winston said in horror, pounding a fist on the edge of the table.

"Of course they would. You would. One of the most powerful people on the planet, a woman who can control her own timeline," Amelie said softly. "You would want her on your side. You have just taken it for granted that she is. When she opposes you, you realize how strong she really is. How terrifying she really is. You would do anything to get that power yourself. Brainwashing her is really the easy way."

Winston ran a hand over the top of his head. "They don't even know if it'll work."

"Then they will kill her," Amelie said with a bitter smile. "So long as she is no longer a problem, they are happy. It is why I have to go get her now."

"Alone? You can't," Winston protested.

Amelie shook her head and tapped her fingers on the screen again. "It is either that or risk her completely. I know what you want to do, but calling the others does us no good. They will not be here in time to help us. She may be dead by the time they get here."

Winston opened his mouth to argue but had no words. He simply grunted and turned to begin typing into the computer. Amelie watched him for a few moments, watching data fly up on the screen. She saw maps and building plans. She saw flight paths. She saw data for people she recognized and some she didn't flash up before vanishing. Finally, Winston turned to her and sighed.

"Go get your gear," he said in his low voice. "I'll get the plane ready."

Amelie turned to leave. She had most of what she needed just from fending off the attack, but she needed more ammunition. She also wanted her suit. If she came back geared like she normally would have been, maybe she could bluff her way past. Pretend it had all been some long plan of hers, a ruse to get Lena to Talon.

"That will not ever work," she muttered to herself as she pulled on the skin-tight outfit that Talon had made her wear. "I have been attacking and killing them for months. In no world will they ever believe I was pretending."

She couldn't help but let out a little laugh at the ridiculousness of it. She tried to focus on that and ignore the tightness in her chest. The lunacy of the whole situation could maybe override the guilt and fear she was holding onto so tightly. Lena was gone and it was Amelie's fault, it was her fault for leading Talon back. She knew exactly how they had found them. Gibraltar wasn't an unknown to them, in any case, but leaving Lena's plane behind had let them plan and decide on a proper attack. The plane was waiting when she got back to the tarmac. To her surprise, Winston was waiting on board. He had settled in the pilot's seat and refused to give it up when she asked.

"You might need help," he replied when she asked.

She didn't argue with him. It was for the best, really. Not only might she actually need his help, she needed some time to rest. The attack on the watchpoint had taken too much out of her. Her limbs felt leaden, like weights tied to her body that were pulling her downward. Beneath all the anger and fear and guilt, there was a gnawing put in her chest and mind. She was exhausted. She needed time to herself, time to recover. A long sleep on the flight might not be enough, but it would be something. Before the plane had even lifted off the ground, she was strapped into her seat and sound asleep. Winston looked back at her with a frown but continued with the plan. The plane rose through the air and turned, roaring across the sky in the wake of their attackers.

The town was silent when they flew over it. Even a quick glance told Amelie that there was no one on the streets. She had always thought it was a living, breathing town full of oblivious people. Now she wondered if even that was a charade. Perhaps everyone that lived there was simply a member of Talon or a relative to someone in Talon. It was an expensive undertaking, even a ridiculous one, but it was certainly a good smoke screen. It even fooled her, so perhaps it was working appropriately.

Winston brought the plane around, scanning the town as he did. When neither of them saw anything worth taking note of, he brought it to hover above a building Amelie pointed out. It was nondescript and could have been any sort of shop or home, a square of brick with nothing more to it. Amelie recognized it easily, though. She'd been through its front door more times than she cared to ever count. With the plane still above it, she hooked a rope through her belt rappeled down onto the flat roof. There was a hatch down to a ladder that she took, dropping down into the silence of the house.

Amelie tried to keep her feelings under control. It had been a hard thing to manage even when she had been brainwashed and forced to do what was expected. Now she was seeing it all from the point of view of a free woman and it made it that much worse. Fear crept into her, the fear of all the past pains. It was the fear of a woman who knew she couldn't change the things were about to happen to her. Memories of restraints and needles flashed through her mind. The echo of a scorching pain rain down from the top of her skull and down the length of her spine.

She remembered the chair they bound her in. It was simple, almost unassuming. The first time, it had reminded her of a dentist's chair. But this had bindings on the arms and legs, a strap for the head. They had forced her onto it and the leather bindings cut into her skin. They had forced a bite guard between her lips, the plastic bitter on her tongue. Needles had pierced her wrist, hooking an IV into her veins. A doctor, a figure in a mask she thought was a doctor, had loomed over her and strapped something metal to her head. After that, all she could remember was pain.

The second time had been nearly as traumatic, even though she went willingly once again. It was pain and torment. The third and fourth, the fifth and sixth had been as bad. By the twentieth, it had begun to dull. By the hundredth, it meant nothing to her. Amelie swallowed the memories, letting fear replace them again. Not fear for herself, but fear for the sweet woman she had allowed to be kidnapped. She had to rescue Lena. Lena couldn't be allowed to know the pain and fear that Amelie had.

The ladder led down to the second floor of what had possibly once been a family home. Stairs led down to the first and Amelie followed to a familiar hallway. Where it would have normally led to a kitchen or dining area, here it led to an open pit with a set of metal stairs built down into it. At the bottom was a concrete room with a metal wall and door on the far end. A concrete hallway lay beyond that. Rifle at the ready, Amelie crept downward.

They were waiting for her. Shots rang out from both sides, painfully loud in the narrow corridor. Amelie threw herself back through the doorway as bullets cracked against the metal frame. She poked her gun around and fired blindly. They didn't have much cover, she hoped that she could take a few out without risking herself. The croaking cry of one man told her she had at least some success. She peered cautiously around the corner and fired twice more before a burst of gunfire made her hide back against the doorframe. Her aim was true, though, and two men fell down dead to the floor.

To Amelie's dismay, the dead were quickly replaced by more troops. The hail of bullets never let up as they tried to suppress her, forcing her to fire blindly again. Whether she hit or not didn't seem to matter. Unlike the soldiers, she was fighting exhaustion and a creeping sense of dead weight in her body. She wasn't sure how much longer she could keep up with them.

The firing stopped again and she peeked around the corner to take more of the soldiers out. Even tired as she was, she was faster than they were. One, two, then three fell before they could even react. A fourth and fifth dropped as they opened fire. Unfortunately for Amelie, luck was on the side of one of the agents. Pain erupted in her shoulder as a bullet lodged in her blue flesh. That chased away her exhaustion. Nothing woke a person like deadly pain did. She twisted back around and slammed her back against the wall, grimacing in pain. Blood ran coolly down her arm and dripped to the floor. Amelie breathed heavily to try and recover, to try and ignore the pain. She wasn't given the chance before the grenade clattered across the floor next to her.

Amelie's eyes went wide in shock before she tried to scramble up the stairs and out of the way. Bullets continued to fire through the doorway as she was flushed out, but she ignored that danger for the more immediate one. The grenade exploded, the force of it contained in the metal room. The blast was funneled out the door and up the stairs, tossing Amelie the last few feet into the upstairs room. Shrapnel lashed across her leg, leaving a long gash that added to the fiery pain coming from her shoulder.

Despite the apparent danger in following her, the agents began to stream through the door below her. With the high ground advantage, Amelie recovered and opened fire. They fell as soon as they made their way into the little room. Amelie left the floor littered with their bodies before they finally took up defensive positions. They took pot shots at Amelie, who had no cover besides laying out of sight of them.

Laying out of sight was what she did. She waited for any of them to be too stupid or brave for their own safety. The floor around her was slowly being stained red as she continued to bleed from her wounds. She began to slowly realize that this attack was not meant to capture her like she would have thought. Why would they not want their prized assassin back? No, this was meant to stall her or kill her if they were lucky. They had what they wanted in Lena. They didn't need Amelie anymore.

She heard the distant click of metal that signaled another grenade being primed and quickly moved back through the house. She was nearing the front door when the kitchen exploded with a loud boom. Amelie shouldered the front door open with her good shoulder, looking around quickly for a better vantage point. She shot her grappling line up to one of the rooftops and let it begin to pull her up. She had to disengage when it felt like it was pulling her wounded shoulder out of its socket, pain screaming through her entire chest. She hit the ground hard and tumbled between two buildings. Behind her, she heard the smashing of glass as the windows were broken and the dark barrels of rifles were trained on her.

She glanced up at the sound of a jet, afraid that it was more Talon. She let herself breathe a small sigh of relief when she saw it was Winston. The plane looked too big to fit along the street, but he somehow made it just as the guns opened fire. She could hear them, muted beneath the sound of the aircraft, along with the _ting_ of bullets hitting metal. The plane barely landed before a door flew open and Winston's hand reached out. He unceremoniously grabbed hold of Amelie and yanked her on board, tossing her against the back seats. Without a word, he returned to the cabin and the plane lifted off quickly from the ground.

"What are you doing? We cannot leave!" Amelie shouted as she clambered forward. "I thought you were coming to help me!"

"What do you suggest we do? I just watched Talon chase you out into the street," he said over his shoulder. "And you're wounded at that!"

Amelie sputtered, waving her hands behind her. "Something! Anything! We cannot just leave her there! They will hurt her, Winston!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Winston roared, turning so sharply in his seat that the plane rocked around them.

"Of course," Amelie said, recoiling. "I know you do. So why are we leaving?"

"We thought your plan would work, but it didn't. They were clearly ready for us," Winston said as he turned back to sit in his seat. His hands gripped the controls so tight that Amelie was afraid he'd break them. "Now you're too hurt to fight properly. We need a better plan, we need something else."

"What are you saying?" Amelie asked as she slipped into the co-pilot's chair. She was certain she already knew.

"I'm going to call in help. When we get back, I'll put out the call," Winston said.

"We can do this," Amelie insisted. "I can do this. Go back. I just need to rethink my plan."

"Amelie," Winston said sharply. "You're bleeding all over the seat. What are you going to be able to do?"

With a swear, Amelie stood from her seat and walked into the back of the plane. She rummaged around until she found the first aid kit. It was difficult to do one-handed, but she managed to bandage herself up good enough for the time being. She could be patched up better when they had the time for it.

"The longer we wait, the more they can do to her," Amelie protested.

"I'm aware of that," Winston growled. "But if you get yourself killed, then what? What do we do?"

"You will have others, you have already said this," Amelie said as she walked back into the cockpit.

"You're the only one we have with any knowledge of this place! That makes you important for whatever we do," Winston explained wearily. "I know you care about her, if that's possible for you. I don't know. I know there's something but you can't risk both her and you just because of it."

Amelie wrapped her arms around her stomach, suddenly feeling ill. "I love her, Winston."

Winston did a double take, looking at her before staring steadfastly out the front window. He went silent for a long time, leaving Amelie alone with her own thoughts. Fear grew up from the sickness in her stomach, spreading upward through her like a branching tree. Thoughts bloomed off it, bright red flowers of panic and terror. Each one of them was full of Lena's pained screams and Amelie's inability to do anything to help her.

"Then it's even more important to do this right," Winston said finally, his rough voice low and soft. "I never should have agreed to this, to do this with you. I should have known better. But I'm just as afraid as you are. I want to get her back. But nothing good is going to happen if we both die trying. Lena understands how this works, what will happen. She knows we may have to take time to plan and find help. And you said they won't kill her unless they have to, right?"

"Right," Amelie agreed. "I would bet money on it that they want her as an agent, not just to remove her. But they will if they cannot change her mind."

"Then that gives us time," Winston pointed out.

"Not much, but some. We will have to do this fast," Amelie said softly.

Winston grunted and that was the end of the conversation. Amelie didn't try to bring it up again, they both knew there was nothing left to say. She huddled in her seat, one hand on her shoulder. She tried her best to ignore the pain and, even more so, ignore the thoughts that clouded her mind. She tried not to think about what was happening to Lena. Amelie needed to rest, to recover. Injury aside, Winston was right in saying she was ill and it was getting worse. What good was she going to be if she couldn't even function properly? Eventually, exhaustion won out and she slept. She dreamed of Lena and she dreamed of death.

At the watchpoint, Winston didn't waste any time trying to contact the others. He punched in numbers and called everyone he could. Amelie listened from the hallway, hiding out of sight. The last thing either of them needed was her to be seen and to ruin a chance at help. Every failed call made Amelie feel colder and colder until she was shivering against the wall.

"Winston? Is that you? What's wrong?" came a lightly accented voice.

There was a moment of silence from Winston as he tried to collect his thoughts. "It's Lena. Something's happened, we need help."

"We'll be there as soon as we can," the voice said. "Tomorrow morning, I promise. Just hold on."

"Thank you," Winston sighed. "Thank you, Angela."


	18. Chapter 18

Amelie waited in the hall, listening as Angela Ziegler and Fareeha Amari arrived at the Watchpoint. She and Winston had decided it would be too much of a shock right up front. So Amelie was relegated to leaning against a wall, her head tilted so her ear was near the door. She heard the front door open and footsteps make their way across the entryway. 

"Winston! It's good to see you but I'm sorry it had to happen like this," Angela said. "Let's get to work, time is of the essence." 

"It is," Winston said, his voice uncertain. He coughed and cleared his throat. "There's something else first. There's someone else here to help us but you're not going to be very happy about it." 

"What? Who is it?" Angela asked, sounding confused. "If they can help us get Lena back, then they're welcome." 

Winston sighed heavily. "Amelie, come out here." 

Amelie swallowed nervously and pushed open the door, stepping out into the entry. Angela gasped in shock, her hands going to cover her mouth. The other woman tensed so hard that it looked like her muscles could snap. Amelie looked at her, blood running even colder than usual. Fareeha Amari was the spitting image of her mother, so much so that for a moment Amelie thought Ana Amari was alive again. Amelie opened her mouth to speak but she never got the chance. Fareeha moved so quickly that it almost seemed like she teleported across the room. Her fist collided hard with Amelie's jaw and sent the blue-skinned woman sprawling. 

Fareeha was immediately on top of her. Amelie threw her hands up to try and shield her face. Fareeha landed punches everywhere else she could manage, pummeling Amelie's chest and gut with one real hand and one metal hand. A blow smashed into Amelie's shoulder and tore her wound back open with a splatter of blood. Struggling hard against the other woman, Amelie tried to grab her wrists, tried to force her to stop. It made no difference. Fareeha was bigger and stronger and seemed intent on beating Amelie to death with her bare hands. Only Winston's interference stopped the assault. He grabbed Fareeha around the waist and bodily lifted her up off the ground. She thrashed in his arms, trying to get free. 

"She shot my mother!" Fareeha snarled. "She shot my mother, let me go! I'll drag her to prison myself!" 

"Fareeha, please," Winston said with a grunt, trying to keep hold of the squirming woman. "Please just listen, we need to talk about this." 

Amelie picked herself up, wincing with every movement. She put a hand on her shoulder, feeling the lukewarm blood seeping into her clothes. She looked at it for a long moment. She hurt everywhere. Fareeha had pulled no punches and she was battered to the very core of her body. That wasn't what was bothering her though. Amelie looked over at Fareeha. 

"How do you know I shot her?" she asked softly. 

Fareeha didn't answer but her gaze flicked down briefly before returning to glare at Amelie. It was enough to give the answer she expected. Through all the pain and hurt and guilt and sadness and anger she felt, there was something new but familiar. It was something Amelie hadn't felt for a very long time. With the knowledge that Ana Amari, one of the toughest and most dangerous women she had ever met, was alive, Amelie Lacroix felt fear. 

"I am glad she is alive," Amelie said. 

"You liar!" Fareeha shouted. "You're a goddamn liar!" 

"I did not do what I did because I wanted to!" Amelie shouted back. "They made me! Your mother was a friend!" 

"Enough!" Winston roared. "I need both of you to help me save Lena, so stop this!" 

Angela cleared her throat and stepped forward. "I think we need some more explanation. Why, exactly, are you here, Amelie?" 

"Because of Lena," Amelie said. "She helped me. I am not with Talon anymore, I am free." 

"How long have you been away from them?" Angela asked. 

"Months. Lena and I have been fighting them since then," Amelie said. 

"You trust her?" Angela asked Winston. 

The gorilla nodded, still holding on to the fuming Fareeha. "I do. I didn't at first, but I do now." 

Angela reached over to lay a hand on Fareeha's arm. "If Winston trusts here, there's a reason, Liebling. I know it's going to be hard, we'll have to talk about it soon," she said before looking at Amelie. "Come along, I'll patch you up. Is my office in any decent shape, Winston?" 

"Er, yes. We've had to use it a few times. It's not as stocked as it used to be, though," he admitted. 

Angela sighed as she stepped forward, grabbing Amelie by the arm. Her grip was tight as she led the other woman away, leaving Fareeha and Winston to argue with each other. Angela said nothing as they walked through the halls and Amelie didn't try to break the silence. She looked at the Swiss woman from the corner of her eye, taking in her features. She looked almost exactly the same as she had the last time Amelie saw her. If anything, she looked more relaxed and calm despite the situation. She certainly didn't look pleased though. 

"Sit down," Angela said as they walked into her office. She turned the light on and gestured to an exam chair before going to find her supplies. "How badly did she hurt you?" 

"I will live," Amelie said as she sat down. "I will hurt for awhile, but I do not think she broke anything." 

Angela wheeled over a chair and brushed the dust off the seat before she sat down. "I can fix that. What I can't do is apologize for her. Or I guess I won't." 

"They made me do it," Amelie said softly. 

"It won't matter. Not to Fareeha or Ana," Angela replied. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small item with a yellow fluid glowing in a small tube. "I don't know if that's fair or not, it's not my call. I know you inflicted a lot of pain and someone needs to answer for it. Let me see your shoulder first." 

Amelie gingerly pulled her shirt off, tossing the bloody cloth into the nearby trashcan. "Talon will pay. We have done our best to make them." 

"Why not run and hide?" Angela asked as she moved the device over Amelie's open wound. 

Amelie cocked her head to try and watch what was going on. "They have something I need." 

"I see," Angela said as she pulled back her device. The wound was closed, though not healed. "I want you to know that the only reason I'm even talking to you is because Winston says he trusts you. He is a gentle and understanding person, but he isn't stupid. So there must be something there. Tell me, what does Lena mean to you? Why risk yourself to save her?" 

"Because she saved me," Amelie said. She reached up to touch her wound but Angela quickly slapped her hand away. Amelie lowered her hand and sighed, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper. "She has been trying to save me and she finally did. I would still be a part of Talon without her. I owe her." 

Angela raised her brows, looking at Amelie curiously. "Is that all?" 

"I care about her," Amelie blurted out. Now that she had admitted it to herself, it felt like the words were always on the tip of her tongue. "I have started to care about her as we have gotten to be friends." 

Angela let out a hum in response but didn't speak. She began to move her device over the angry dark spots that now covered Amelie's skin where Fareeha had hit her. They would blossom into bruises by morning, but the device seemed to be draining the pain away from them. Angela moved it over Amelie's stomach and chest and finally to her face. When Angela pulled it back, the yellow fluid had diminished to half. 

"Are you sorry for the things you've done? The people you've killed?" Angela asked as she tucked the device away and stood. 

The question caught Amelie by surprise, crashing into her like a wave. It dragged her down into memories she didn't want to explore. Faces appeared before her, dozens and dozens of them. No matter what Talon had done to her, she could never forget them. Maybe that was intentional. Maybe they wanted her to hold on to that. But now they gathered and settled in her chest like a stone. It was so heavy that she began to ache all over again. It was with the last face that the weight finally crushed and broke her heart. She saw his face, she saw Gerard. 

"Yes," was all Amelie could manage in a croaking voice. She wrapped her arms around her middle, hugging herself lightly as she looked down at the floor. 

Angela watched her for a moment before nodding. "I'll talk to Fareeha while you dress. She won't forgive you, but she'll be less likely to attack you." She started out the door before pausing. "Still, I'd sit close to Winston." 

 

Amelie sat down directly next to Winston at the command table in his workshop. The map Amelie had pulled up before was still on the screen. The gorilla looked at her curiously and Amelie glanced meaningfully at Fareeha. Winston raised his brows a moment before he smiled and nodded. They both turned their attention to the other women. The two were speaking in low whispers. Fareeha's arms were folded over her chest and she was tense enough that it showed off the thick muscles of her strong arms. Angela laid a hand on Fareeha's forearm and the Egyptian woman relaxed just a little. With that, they both turned and moved to sit at the table. 

"We have a question first," Angela said. "Why did you keep antagonizing Talon after you were free? You could have gone into hiding. Was this revenge?" 

Amelie and Winston looked at each other for a moment before Amelie sighed. She laid her hands on the table, palms together, and slowly spread them apart. She watched them for any sign of tremor but found none. She was alright for the time being. With a deep breath, Amelie began to explain. She talked about what Talon had done to her, what they made her do. She talked about what had occurred between her and Lena and the escape from Talon in the woods. She explained her encroaching illness and Winston's diagnosis of her and of the need for the technology still held by Talon. 

"So, because of that, it is my fault," Amelie finished. "It's because of me that Lena was captured." 

"That's not entirely true," Winston said. "If I remember right, you wanted to stop this and just live quietly. It was Lena who went out on her own and got injured before we could get her. It was that incident that led them back here." 

"I wish you had called me sooner," Angela said. "We could have solved all of this. It would have been messy, I know, but it would have been better than this." 

"I did not know what would happen," Amelie said quietly. "I did not want to get free of Talon only to be taken by someone else. I just wanted to be free if only for a little while." 

"We can discuss your poor choices later. Right now, we need to figure out how to get Lena," Angela said. 

"What do you know about this base?" Fareeha asked. 

"Only what they showed me taking me in and out of it. It is where they took me when I needed refreshing," Amelie said as she stood up. She leaned over the table and flicked away the map. A blank grid showed up in its place and Amelie began drawing corridors and rooms on it with her fingers. She tapped a specific room. "This is where they held me before I was strapped to the machine. I think that is where Lena will be." 

"There's only one entrance?" Fareeha said, standing as well to look at the map. "That's not great." 

"It is the only one I know of," Amelie admitted. "They never really let me wander the facility. I was there for a specific reason." 

"Right, well, still a problem. But if we can get in and make a big enough distraction, then that should give you enough time to get to Lena," Fareeha said. It seemed like her animosity towards Amelie had vanished, leaving it separate from the mission. She set her jaw in such a way that it made it very obvious the anger wasn't gone, though. "What else can you tell us? Anything at all." 

Amelie did the best she could, conjuring up old memories of a place she wanted to forget. Fareeha took every piece of information as if it were the most important. Every little bit could help her plan. The three women and Winston worked longer than any of them wanted to, but it needed to be. The plan was dangerous, everything they were doing was mad. They should be going in with a full complement of trained soldiers. Instead, they were three women and a gorilla who were all planning to split up almost immediately. 

"Is there anything else?" Fareeha asked finally. The other three said nothing and she nodded. "Then we have our plan. We'll move out as soon as everyone is ready." 

They broke apart to go prepare, Angela and Fareeha leaving to get the gear they had brought with. Amelie made her way back to her room where she had left her gear. She had been concerned about another attack and didn't want to be far from her rifle. She gave it a quick check before she suited up. She chose a more tactical outfit this time than what she had tried to bluff her way in with. Satisfied that she had everything, she made her way out of the compound to the plane. 

Winston was already in the pilot's seat, getting ready to go. He wore the gear he had when Talon attacked, though without the heavy jump jets. They were stashed in the back but he couldn't fit in the cockpit with them. Amelie was stashing her gear when a loud metal clang behind her made her spin around in surprise. Her hand reached for her rifle before she saw what it was. 

Fareeha had stepped into the plane wearing a full suit of armor and carrying more in her hand. It was painted a brilliant blue and gold, save for a few places where the paint had been nicked and chipped off by something. It looked thick and heavy but she moved like she wasn't wearing anything at all. She smirked when she saw Amelie looking and tapped a metal-clad finger against her own chest with a clang. 

"Raptora armor and the jets that go with it" she explained as she set her metallic package down with Winston's jump jets. "Or at least something close. Courtesy of a friend. I think it's better than the real thing, better than anything Helix gave me." 

"It is impressive. I knew Helix used such things but I have never seen one up close," Amelie said as she sat down. 

Angela climbed aboard, dressed up in her own bit of gear and carrying a heavy looking staff. She paused to glare first at Amelie and then again at Fareeha. With a sharp nod, she turned and joined Winston in the cockpit. All members of the group aboard, the doors closed and the engines outside roared to life. Fareeha sat down rather awkwardly in a seat across from Amelie and strapped herself in. 

"Do you think this is going to work?" Amelie asked, feeling uncertain. 

"Of course," Fareeha said as the plane lifted off. "Talon won't know what hit them."


	19. Chapter 19

"Are you sure it's this way?" Fareeha asked, gesturing with her rocket launcher.

"Yes, I am sure," Amelie said, aiming her rifle down the long hallway.

"It just feels like it isn't, I guess," Fareeha continued. "Why doesn't Talon use signs? Every big compound I've been in had signs pointing the way."

"Overwatch used signs. There were signs pointing to my office," Angela chimed in. 

"Exactly!" Fareeha said. "It would make things eas--" 

She was cut off by a shout and a burst of gunfire. Amelie threw herself back into the room with Angela. Fareeha turned as bullets pinged off her armor. It was not as heavy as some of the armor Amelie had seen and nowhere near anything like the old Crusader gear she remembered. It still did a pretty fine job of protecting the woman.Amelie was happy to have even a light walking tank with her. Especially when she calmly fired a rocket down the hall at her attackers. The explosion rattled Amelie's teeth in her skull and sent the attackers scattering. 

"Alright, so we'll go this way," Fareeha continued. "You go the other way and get Lena. Stay in touch and we'll move your way once you've got her. That way we can cover you." 

"Right, that is the plan," Amelie said with a nod. 

All three of them clicked their radios on and with one final glance at each other, they split up. Angela and Fareeha went in the direction of the fired rocket and Amelie went the opposite. Resistance into the base hadn't been as bad as they'd thought it would be. Talon seemed to have expected them to take longer to plan. What enemies had been waiting were quickly dispatched by Amelie's rifle or frightened off by Fareeha's rocket launcher. She also carried an assault rifle, but the launcher was far more intimidating. Unfortunately, their attack and the noise meant Talon knew they were there. 

"This is a dumb plan," Angela said suddenly on the radio. 

"You agreed to it," Fareeha reminded her. 

Angela huffed. "That doesn't mean it's good. Just that it's the only one we had." 

Amelie peeked around a corner, spying a pair of Talon agents on guard. She took a deep breath and held it as she stepped into the open, her rifle up. Peering down the scope, she squeezed off two shots and both enemies fell to the ground in spreading pools of blood. Amelie let out her breath with a slow sigh. 

"Do you two always talk this much or is it only on dangerous missions?" she asked the other two women. 

"It helps keep my nerves down," Angela said. "Silence just makes it harder." 

"But I cannot hear people sneaking up on me," Amelie pointed out. "And I do not have a big metal suit to keep me safe." 

"Fair enough," Fareeha said. "Well, you're lucky. We just found something that'll come in handy." 

There were shouts followed by a muffled explosion which was followed by a louder explosion that sounded nothing like Fareeha's rockets. More people began yelling and the two women started chattering back and forth, calling out targets. Amelie reached down and clicked her radio off. So long as they kept theirs open, it would be fine. She hoped. 

She crept her way through the hallways. It was sickeningly familiar to her and memories washed over her until she felt like she was in a dream. She ran a hand along a wall that she remembered scraping her nails along, trying desperately to free herself. She remembered the pain when her nail tore off and the way the guards beat her into submission. That had been a rare occasion, a time when she had been in the field far too long. She'd started to come to her senses and wanted to flee what was coming. Most of the time she walked placidly through the complex despite knowing what they were going to do to her. She wanted to get away, to avoid the pain of it, but the programming was too strong. 

Amelie shook her head, trying to shake the thoughts away. She heard footsteps and ducked into a room, leaving the door open a crack. She watched as a group of guards ran past her position, moving down the hallway the way she had come. They didn't pause to look for anyone. It seemed like whatever distraction Fareeha and Angela came up with had been a success. 

With the hall clear, Amelie stepped back out and continued her trek. She encountered no resistance, nothing to slow her down until she came to the room. The room. The dreaded room where they pumped her full of chemicals and stabbed needles into her spine. Where electricity was run through her body until it felt like her muscles would snap. She didn't know how much of it was the procedure and how much was simply sadistic torture. She only hoped that Lena hadn't been subjected to much. 

A pair of fidgety guards stood outside the room. They looked like they wanted to follow their comrades toward the commotion, but they stayed put. They went down as soon as Amelie turned the corner. She didn't bother to pause and collect herself, no time taken to use the scope. She simply opened fire until they both fell down dead. They were keeping her Lena captive, they deserved no courtesy. 

The room itself was mostly bare. In one corner was a desk covered in papers. In another, there was a bed with an I.V. stand and a tray of medical tools. But on one side was the machine. A medical chair with straps. Next to it was an adjustable, armed pole with a metal band hanging from the top of it. It was the circlet they put around Amelie's head countless times. That was the thing they had been searching for all this time. But it wasn't important now. What was important was the bed and the woman lying in it. Amelie made her way over, expecting the worst but finding herself quietly relieved. 

Lena looked pale, but Lena always looked pale so it was hard to tell if it was bad. She had been stripped to her underwear and accelerator and her wounds had been rebandaged, this time professionally. Looking carefully, Amelie could find no other marks or injuries on Lena's visible skin. There was a small light of hope building in Amelie's heart. Maybe they hadn't had the time to torture her yet. Maybe her injuries were too severe to risk trying to brainwash her. It was a physically harsh procedure, after all. 

Amelie clicked her radio back on. "I found her." 

"Good," Angela said. "We've done everything we could." 

"I blew up their plane," Fareeha said in annoyance. "Everything I could was pretty damned good." 

"There were more headed your way, so be careful on your way here," Amelie said before she muted herself. She reached a hand down to gently shake Lena by the shoulder. "Lena? Wake up, Lena." 

There was a moment where nothing happened and the little bit of hope Amelie had started to darken. Then Lena's eyes fluttered and opened. She blinked a few times, her face a mask of confusion. When she saw Amelie, though, that confusion fell away and she broke into a weak smile. Amelie smiled back, letting out a relieved laugh as she cupped Lena's cheek in her hand. 

"Can you sit up?" Amelie asked, positioning her other hand to help. 

Lena nodded and slowly pushed herself up off the bed, holding onto Amelie's arm for support. She was panting a little when she was finally sitting. Amelie looked at her with concern but Lena continued to smile at her. She leaned forward and Amelie followed suit, their foreheads lightly touching. 

"I am so glad," Amelie said softly. 

"You came for me," Lena said in a weak whisper. 

"Of course I did," Amelie told her. "And more than just me. Others came to help me get you back." 

"Who?" Lena asked. 

Amelie cradled Lena's head in both her hands. "Angela and Fareeha. They will be here soon. And Winston helped, of course." 

Lena nodded but didn't speak. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, looking at Amelie with quiet expectation. It took Amelie a moment to realize, but when she did she smiled. She followed suit, leaning in to press her lips softly to Lena's. They were dry and cool, but just as sweet as the last time they had kissed. It didn't last long, a simple and tender thing before they broke apart again. Amelie slid her arms around Lena and pulled her in gently, embracing the smaller woman. There was a small, metallic clicking sound. Then there was a sharp pain in Amelie's back. And then another. And another. And another. Amelie pulled away, stumbling back from Lena. She was smiling at Amelie, a bloodied scalpel in her hand that she'd picked up off the tray. Amelie reached around her back, feeling the blood flowing from her wound. 

"Lena," Amelie gasped. "Why?" 

"You know why," Lena said, her voice raspy and barely above a whisper. 

Lena stood on trembling legs and began to move toward Amelie, who stood still in shock. The door banged open behind her and the loud, metallic footsteps of Fareeha filled the room. She rushed forward without questioning and grabbed hold of Lena's hand, squeezing until the scalpel dropped from her fingers. Angela followed quickly, stepping past the two and looking for something among the medical trays. She came up from her frantic search with a hypodermic needle that she quickly stuck into the neck of the struggling Lena. 

"Keep hold of her," Angela insisted as she moved over to Amelie. "That'll take a few moments to have any effect." 

Fareeha grabbed Lena by her accelerator harness as well. "I've got her." 

"What happened?" Angela asked as she pointed her staff at Amelie. A stream of yellow light flowed from it and the blood flowing from Amelie's wounds slowed. 

"I woke her up, we...we hugged and she stabbed me," Amelie said numbly. "We were too late." 

"Let go of me!" Lena rasped, trying to jerk herself free. She visibly blurred, becoming less substantial for a moment as she tried to teleport and failed. She began to blink more rapidly as the drug set in. "Damn you, let go!" 

"We'll figure something out," Angela said reassuringly. "We'll fix her, but we can't do it here. As soon as she's out, we need to go." 

Amelie nodded, watching as Lena's struggles became weaker and weaker. Finally, she lurched forward and collapsed against Fareeha's chest. The armored woman caught her, surprisingly gentle in her heavy suit, and picked her up in a bridal carry. She began to move toward the door and Amelie started to join her. She hesitated before walking over to the brainwashing machine. She inspected it for a moment before she simply grabbed hold of the band and yanked as hard as she could. Wires snapped and it came free, sending her stumbling back a step. She thrust it into Angela's hands before shouldering her rifle and leading the group back out into the hall. 

The way back was quieter than the way in. Whatever it was that Fareeha had done, perhaps actually blowing up a plane, had done the job of distracting Talon. But it wouldn't last long. Amelie could already hear shouts behind them as they left the medical hallway. As they rounded the corner, she stuck a small motion detection mine on the wall. It was the only venom mine she had taken with her when she left Talon. It only felt right to leave it behind for them. Hopefully, a face full of toxic gas would stop anyone who risked catching up with the group. 

Winston was waiting nervously at the plane, his Tesla cannon in hand as he stood in the open door. The engines were still running, a low rumble in the otherwise still air. He visibly relaxed as they got closer, seeing that they'd succeeded. He moved out of the way for Fareeha, who set Lena down in one of the seats. Angela moved in to begin examining her, prying her eyelids open to check her pupils before checking her pulse. Amelie motioned toward the front of the plane. 

"We need to go now," she said. 

Winston nodded and set his weapon down. He clambered into the cockpit and hit the button to close the doors before he began his takeoff procedure. The engines roared louder and the plane began to shake as it lifted off the ground. Behind her, Amelie could hear Fareeha swear and the heavy boots of her suit clanging on the cabin floor. Only when they were in the air, pointed towards Gibraltar, did Winston look at Amelie again. 

"You got her. You really got her out of there," he said, his voice thick with relief. "Is she okay? What happened?" 

Amelie breathed out a low sigh and closed her eyes for a moment. "We got her. But, Winston, they got to her first. She stabbed me in there." 

Winston's eyes went huge in shock. "No, what? She must have been in shock! Did you surprise her?" 

"No, it was not that," Amelie said, looking over her shoulder towards the back of the plane. "She said I would know why she did it. And I do. I am a traitor to Talon and Lena is now Talon." 

"We have to find a way to fix her," he said desperately. 

"We will, Winston," Angela said as she joined them in the cockpit, holding the band. "I promise we will. By the way, what is this?" 

"It is what they used on us to brainwash us," Amelie explained. "I do not know if it will help, but I thought I had better take it just in case. Maybe you and Winston can reverse it somehow." 

"Good thinking," Angela said. "We'll see what we can do. I promise I won't stop until she's better." 

"How is she now?" Amelie asked. 

"She'll be asleep for a long while. I drugged her a bit too much. She's alright and safe, but we should have time before she wakes back up," Angela said. "Probably for the best. I don't want her having a Talon episode on the plane." 

She smiled faintly and turned back to go tend to her patient. Amelie slumped into her seat, watching the clouds outside the plane pass by. Winston watched her for a moment before he reached over a large hand and laid it on her shoulder. Amelie tensed briefly before she reached up, placing her hand on his. 

"You found the thing? After all this time?" he asked her. 

"I always knew it would be here. I just did not think we could get it from here so I never suggested it. I had hoped it might turn up in an easier location," Amelie explained. 

"But that means we can help you too, right?" Winston said, offering up his best smile. It was more strained than he probably meant it to be. 

Amelie nodded before looking back out the window. "Maybe. But she comes first. No matter what, Winston, Lena comes first."


	20. Chapter 20

"How long will she be out?" Amelie asked as she peered in through the reinforced window to the cell.

"Probably until morning," Angela said. "And if not, she'll feel so groggy that she'll be lucky if she can move."

"I do not like leaving her this way," Amelie said.

Lena lay inside the holding cell on a thin mattress. They had managed to dress her rather awkwardly, working around the accelerator on her chest. Amelie wasn't entirely sure how Lena managed to do it on her own. They got her into a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, though. It was better than nothing but they gave her an extra blanket to keep warm just in case. Curled up beneath it, Amelie thought she looked very small.

"She'll be fine. After everything, she probably needs to rest," Angela said, giving Amelie's arm a pat. "In fact, we all do. So doctor's orders are to get some sleep tonight."

Angela turned to leave but Amelie stayed behind. She did not want to leave Lena alone. Not that she was worried Lena would do something, but Amelie knew what it was like to wake up after something like that. The drugs and the pain and the worry were all familiar to her. She didn't want Lena to be alone during all of that even if she truly was brainwashed now. The ache in Amelie's back said she was. But a hundred excuses ran through Amelie's mind, reasons that it couldn't be true.

Amelie leaned her back against the wall opposite Lena's holding cell. She stood there, watching and waiting until her legs got tired. When they did, she slid down until she was sitting on the cold tile floor. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Amelie watched and waited for something to happen, anything at all. Lena simply slept in the dim light of her room. Eventually, Amelie slept too, hunched against the wall with her cheek on her knee. She woke again not long after and dragged herself back to her room. She didn't want to go against the doctor's orders.

Amelie wasn't entirely sure what woke her up. She thought it had been a sound, a thud from somewhere far away and muffled through the walls of the compound. It could have been anything. It could have been a stack of some forgotten object toppling over or just the building settling. Something about it made Amelie get out of bed and dress. She crept out through the door of her room on bare feet. Out of habit, she peered into Lena's empty room and sighed before continuing on her way. She needed to check on Lena or she'd never go back to sleep. She was halfway to the holding cell when all of the lights went out.

The darkness was absolute. Amelie stumbled to a halt and reached out to her side to find the wall. There were no windows in this part of the building, it was too deep inside. She crept forward a few more steps before coming to a stop, blinking rapidly to try and make her eyes adjust. Silently, she cursed the doctors who had experimented on her for not having the courtesy of giving her night vision. With her visor, she'd be able to see anything but she had left it locked in the armory.

"Hello?" she called as she groped her way forward. "Is anyone else awake?"

Silence answered her. Angela and Fareeha were in a different wing, sleeping in Angela's old room. Winston was on the other side of the building as he always was. Amelie swore again as she walked slowly through the hall, one hand sliding along the smooth wall. She tried to recall the usual path she took to her room. It was almost a straight shot. There were only two or three turns but that one extra made a difference. Angela may have wondered why Talon didn't use signs but Amelie was left to wonder why Overwatch didn't have emergency lights or glow in the dark signs. Maybe she'd bring it up to Winston in the morning.

She made it to the first crossways and turned left, sliding her way down that wall. Her vision didn't improve at all, that she could tell. Without even the faintest bit of light, there was nothing to take in. She turned right at the next hall, hand brushing over a sign she couldn't see. Amelie made it halfway down the hall before something changed. She could see, just a tiny bit. There was a light at the other end. It reflected along the paint and off the shiny tiles of the floor. It was a small ring of light and it pulsed softly. It was blue.

"What's the matter, love? Lost your way?" Lena asked.

"How did you get out?" Amelie asked, taking a cautious step backward.

"It was easy. There was a vent in the room," Lena said with a laugh. "Bit of a squeeze, but I got through alright. Should've kept a guard on me, huh?"

Amelie watched that blue light with uncertainty. "You were drugged. You should still be unconscious."

"I woke up and the fun thing about being out of time," Lena said as her light moved a step forward. "I can move ahead of all that recovery stuff."

"Can you see me?" Amelie asked.

In the space of a blink, the light vanished and reappeared closer down the hall. "Oh, yeah, of course. I'm not stupid. Picked up a pair of goggles before I cut the power."

Amelie went tense, her chest going cold.

"Oh, don't worry, not yours," Lena said with another laugh. "Too complicated. Not that you'll be able to get yours. You're not getting past me. I've got orders to take care of you, see?"

"How do you plan to do that?" Amelie asked even though she already knew the answer.

"I'll kill you," Lena said as she blinked closer again. Amelie could see the light reflecting off Lena's face, revealing the hateful smirk she was wearing. "They don't need you anymore. You're too much effort and now they've got me." Lena paused for a moment before chuckling. "Though, maybe they'll like to have the little doctor too."

Amelie lashed out, trying to grab at Lena. She hoped she was fast enough but her fingers closed around empty air. The light of Lena's accelerator vanished and reappeared behind her. Lena struck hard, driving her fist into the small of Amelie's back and sending her stumbling forward. Amelie lashed backward into thin air as Lena vanished again, reappearing beside Amelie. Lena rammed a fist hard into Amelie's side and shoved her back against the wall.

"What do you think you're going to accomplish here?" Lena's voice said out of the darkness.

"I am going to stop you," Amelie said with more confidence than she felt. "I am going to rescue my friend."

"Friend?" Lena asked with a sigh. "Is that all I am to you? I thought by now you'd think differently."

"You are not my Lena," Amelie said as she pushed herself off the wall. "You are a Talon puppet pretending to be my Lena."

Before Lena could respond, Amelie swung a fist out hard toward the light. To the surprise of both women, her fist connected with Lena's shoulder. There was the warmth of skin and the resistance of muscle for a brief second before Lena vanished again. Amelie staggered under the momentum of her own punch and Lena took advantage, reappearing in time to hit Amelie square in the stomach. Amelie gasped as the breath was knocked out of her, falling down to her knees.

"You really are weak," Lena taunted. "Is this the sickness? You know, it could have been fixed if you just went back."

Amelie bared her teeth as she struggled to breathe properly. "Never."

"Then killing you is really just mercy at this point," Lena said with a sigh.

"Why don't you just shoot me?" Amelie asked in a raspy voice.

"You lot locked the guns up and I can't find the key," Lena said bitterly. "So I have to do this the hard way."

With that, Lena suddenly crashed her smaller form into Amelie. Caught by surprise, Amelie slammed back onto the ground. Lena knelt with her knees pressed into Amelie's belly. Her hands found Amelie's throat and began to squeeze hard. In the reflected light of Lena's accelerator, Amelie could see eyes full of unnatural hate. It looked so wrong in big, brown eyes that had been so kind and soft just a day before.

Amelie jammed her hand up into Lena's face, trying to shove her away. Her other hand hit at Lena's side, grabbing desperately at her clothes to try and pull her off. Amelie felt her strength waning as the breath was slowly strangled out of her. With one last desperate motion, she hooked her fingers into the harness of Lena's accelerator and pulled as hard as she could. Lena wasn't expecting it or perhaps the combination of Amelie's fingers clawing at her face was enough to throw her off. The pair rolled over onto the floor and Amelie scrambled away as quickly as she could, drawing in ragged breaths. That was it, she realized. The answer to ending this fight. She'd had her hand right on it. Lena's accelerator.

Amelie heard Lena get to her feet and prepared herself. The smaller woman rushed her again, but Amelie was waiting for her. She reached out quickly, fingers finding Lena's arm. She grabbed hold and yanked forward as hard as she could, sending Lena off balance. Before Lena could rewind or vanish, Amelie grabbed hold of the accelerator as tightly as she could. She yanked forward while Lena pulled away from her, the buckles on the harness straining until they popped free. Both women staggered and fell, hitting the hard tile floor with a double thud. Amelie quickly scrambled to her feet and walked forward, using the accelerator like a flashlight. Lena was still sitting on the floor and she began to laugh when she looked up at Amelie.

"What did you think that would do?" she asked.

Amelie blinked in surprise. "I thought it would--"

"Turn me into a ghost? Are you stupid?" Lena asked as she stood up and stepped closer to the other woman. "Don't you remember? Winston fixed it so I don't have to always wear it. I wasn't wearing it that night we f--"

Amelie sucker-punched Lena in the jaw as hard as she could. Lena stumbled backward, her eyes wide with surprise at the attack. Before she could recover, Amelie followed up by driving her fist upward into Lena's stomach to knock the wind from her. Amelie dropped the accelerator to free up both hands. She grabbed Lena by the shoulder, holding her still as she punched her again in the gut to try and keep her stunned. She didn't want to hit Lena in the head, she didn't want to risk it. Body blows were already bad enough, but she couldn't think of any other way to subdue Lena.

"I'm sorry," Amelie whispered as the lights flickered back on above them.

There were footsteps behind Amelie and a pair of strong hands grabbed her. She was lifted roughly away from Lena, one brown arm and one metal one hooking under Amelie's shoulders to keep hold of her. Angela swept past in the fan of a robe and descended on the conscious but dazed Lena. Amelie saw the glint of a hypodermic needle.

"You were really going at her there," Fareeha said as she let go.

Amelie stumbled a bit, her gaze still on Lena. "It was dark and she was, I was, I could not think of any way to stop her. I was going to bind her but I do not think even that would work on Lena." She finally looked at Angela. "Will she be alright?"

"She'll be alright," Angela said. "I'll heal her injuries when we get her back to her cell."

"We cannot take her back there," Amelie said, shaking her head. "She will just find a way to get out again. We need to trap her without her accelerator somehow."

Angela looked thoughtful for a moment as Fareeha stepped over to pick Lena up off the floor. Whatever Angela had injected her with had acted fast and the small woman was completely unconscious. She lay like a ragdoll in Fareeha's arms, a sight that made Amelie's chest ache.

"The room they built to keep her stable the first time," Angela finally said. "We can lock her in it and take her accelerator without worrying about her vanishing for good."

The words "for good" made Amelie's stomach sink. She had done what she had out of desperation, without really thinking through the consequences. If it had worked, she'd have been saved but what would have happened to Lena? Would she really have disappeared forever? That hadn't happened originally, she remembered, back when the accident first happened. Surely Lena would have been strong enough to recover again. She shook her head, trying to chase away the thoughts.

The three women and their unconscious prisoner made their way through the compound, Amelie carrying the accelerator close. They met Winston along the way and when told of their plan, he nodded in agreement. He led them to the room-sized metal chamber. An old bed, chair, and table were still inside it, coated with a layer of dust. Amelie brushed as much as she could off the bed before Fareeha set her down. Outside the room, Winston fiddled with the control panel until an electric buzzing sound filled the room. Fareeha and Amelie turned to leave, Amelie holding the accelerator tightly in her hands. She glanced back nervously as she drew it further and further away from its owner. Lena flickered briefly, shimmering like a mirage, making Amelie's heart skip a beat. When she stabilized back into solid form, Amelie let out a sigh of relief.

"We should all get back to sleep," Angela said as they shut the door, locking Lena inside.

"I do not know if I can," Amelie said softly. "I think I will stay here and keep watch."

"She can't get out," Winston said. "You don't have to worry."

"No, it is not that I am worried. I just want to stay close," Amelie tried to explain.

The others nodded in quiet understanding, Angela even putting a hand on Amelie's arm for a moment. They left, leaving Amelie alone in an empty hallway, facing a heavy metal door. She stepped over and sank down to the floor, leaning back against the door. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them tightly. With a sigh, she laid her cheek against her knee and closed her eyes.

"I am sorry, Lena," she whispered. "I really am."


	21. Chapter 21

"Are you still out there?" Lena asked through the small intercom set into the wall beside the door.

Amelie looked up, blinking her eyes slowly. She'd been asleep again. There wasn't terribly much else to do in between waiting for the meals that Angela brought by. She only left the hall to use the bathroom or shower when she felt she needed to. Otherwise, she sat in the same spot she had picked out on that first night and had stayed there, waiting, for two weeks. Waiting for anything to happen. She crawled over to the opposite wall and pushed down the intercom button.

"Yes," Amelie said, her voice a low croak. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Yes, I am here."

"Why? It isn't like I can go anywhere," Lena said.

"Because I need to make sure you are alright. I need to be here just in case," Amelie replied with a small sigh.

Lena laughed, the sound tinny through the speaker. "Just in case what? The procedure fails and you get your simpering little Lena back?"

"It failed on me," Amelie said. "Maybe it will fail on you as well."

"Do you even really care? About me? About having the old Lena back?" Lena asked coldly.

"Of course I do," Amelie said defensively. "I-I love her. You, I love you. I do. As much as I probably should not, I do."

"No you don't," Lena said. "You're just desperate and alone and dying. You're latching onto anyone you can before the end. That's all it is."

Amelie let her hand fall away from the intercom. There was an amused laugh before the speaker clicked as Lena closed the line on her side as well. Pain stabbed through Amelie's chest at those words. It wasn't just hurt at them, though that was a large part of it. It was also fear. It was fear that Lena was right. Amelie couldn't deny that she had slowly become more desperate for contact the longer she went without her conditioning and the closer she got to death. But it hadn't ever felt like desperation, had it? Not to Amelie and seemingly not to Lena. Or if it had, she had never mentioned.

She rubbed her face with her hands, looking up at the sound of footsteps down the hall. She looked up to see Angela walking toward her holding a pair of trays. She handed one to Amelie and slid the other through a slot on the door. There was a scraping sound as Lena grabbed it and took it away. Amelie looked down at the food for a moment before she set the tray aside.

"You need to eat," Angela admonished. "I know you barely have been."

"I will eat, I promise. I am just not hungry right now," Amelie said.

Angela crouched down to look Amelie in the eye. "Have you been sleeping?"

"Yes. Too much, really," Amelie answered.

"It can't be very good sleep if you're laying out here in the hallway," Angela said with a sigh. "But I know you won't go back to your room. You look upset, though. What's the matter?

Amelie looked away for a moment, biting the inside of her cheek. She shook her head slowly. "If I tell you, you will keep it from the others?"

"I'm a doctor, Amelie. Confidentiality is what I do," Angela said with a warm smile.

"I am afraid, Angela," Amelie said softly.

Angela knelt forward on her knees, sitting back on her heels as she settled in. "Of what?"

"Of what?" Amelie said with a small, surprised laugh. "Where do I start?"

"From the top, I suggest," Angela said as she laid a gentle hand on Amelie's arm.

Amelie bit her cheek again, trying to sort through the thoughts clouding her mind. "What if you cannot fix her? What will we do then?"

Angela looked surprised for a moment before she smiled. "You don't need to worry about that. I need to worry about that and I promise I've made a lot of progress. She'll be fine, back to normal."

"What if it is permanent?" Amelie asked.

"It wasn't permanent for you," Angela pointed out.

"No, but it is killing me instead," Amelie said. "What if it is the same for her? Maybe you can remove it but she will die with me."

Angela squeezed Amelie's arm gently. "Neither of you is going to die. I promise you that." She paused before smiling at Amelie. "Can I say something? I'm impressed you worry for her before yourself. Not many people can do that."

"I care about her," Amelie said quietly. "How could I not worry for her?"

"It's a sign that you really do love her, I think," Angela said. "Which is not anything I would have ever expected from you."

Amelie looked down at her hands, a wash of shame running through her. She had once been a good person. It was so long ago now, in a different life completely. She had loved easily then. She had loved deeply and openly, had married a man who meant the world to her. She had even cared for Lena back then, even if it had been a brief and fleeting thing. She had cared for so many people in that life. But here and now, it was a shock to anyone that she could have feelings again. It was a shock even to herself that she could feel these things once again. She couldn't blame Angela for being surprised by it. She was surprised herself most of the time. After all the things she had done, after what she had become, basic humanity was something strange and new again.

"I'm sorry," Angela said softly. "I didn't mean it like that. That was mean of me to say."

"You are right," Amelie said with a shake of her head. "I was a monster. I am a monster. I am not human anymore. Why should you not be surprised that I can feel the things a human can?"

"Amelie, don't think like that. Whatever they did to you, it made you not yourself. It wasn't you who did all those things, it was their puppet," Angela said, trying to soothe the situation. "You're a human, a person with feelings and emotions. You can love and you clearly do. I promise we'll make sure everything is fixed. You'll never have to feel like you aren't a person again."

There was a scraping of metal as Lena shoved her empty food tray back out through the slot on the door. Angela squeezed Amelie's arm one last time before she pushed herself to her feet and collected the tray. She lingered for a moment, staring down at the blue woman on the floor.

"Things will be alright. I promise. Now promise me you'll eat," she said. "I need you to keep your strength up."

Amelie reached over and picked up her tray, putting it in her lap. She grabbed the fork and began to poke at her dinner. "I will eat. I always do, eventually."

Angela lingered a moment longer before she turned to leave, walking back down the hall towards the main living area. Alone again, Amelie continued to poke at her food, not feeling particularly hungry. But she made a promise, so she took a bite and chewed slowly. Behind her, behind the door, she could hear Lena moving around and scraping against the metal. After a moment, there was a click as the intercom opened up.

"What if they can't cure us?" Lena asked in a quiet voice.

Amelie felt a shiver run down her spine. It was the first time since they'd rescued her that she'd heard Lena sound so small and vulnerable. For a moment, it was as if the old Lena was back and had only just now realized the terrible plight she was in. Amelie set aside her food again and reached up to hit the intercom button.

"Angela will find a way to fix us both," Amelie said, trying to sound reassuring. "She is the best doctor in the world."

There was a long pause before Lena spoke again. "What if you're wrong?"

"Then I suppose I will die like Talon intended," Amelie said with a sigh. "But they will never give up on trying to help you. I promise you that."

"Why do they care so much?" Lena asked. "Why do you care?"

"You do not remember much, do you? About your past? It was the same for me," Amelie said. She waited for a response but Lena didn't answer. "They care because you are their friend. You are very dear to them. No matter what happens, they will never stop trying to save you."

"What about you?" Lena asked again.

"You already know the answer."

There was another pause before Lena laughed softly. "Because you love me."

Amelie smiled and closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the door. "That is right."

"I don't believe you," Lena said, though her voice wavered.

"I do not need you to believe me," Amelie said. "At least not right now. When you are better, then I will need you to believe me."

There was a click and the intercom went dead again. Amelie sighed and picked her food back up. She scooted it around her tray with her fork like a bored child, her head filled with thoughts. What if Angela couldn't cure them? What if she died and Lena was stuck like she was? It wasn't the first time she'd had the thoughts. It wasn't even the hundredth. They were unending since the start of the whole ordeal, sometimes quiet but most times loud and screaming in her skull. She sighed as she began to eat her dinner. All she could do right now was put her trust into Angela.


	22. Chapter 22

It was another week before Angela had her breakthrough. It was another week before everything was ready and the machine built. Four long weeks had left both Amélie and Lena in sorry states. Amélie found herself plagued by headaches, what she thought was the result of sleeping on the hard floor and propped up against the wall. Her muscles were always stiff and she hurt all over. Lena's captivity had proved too much even for the conditioned woman. She had talked to Amélie more and more as the days went by, usually of nothing important but occasionally letting something slip that she clearly hadn't meant to. 

"I just wish she'd finish already," she'd said one day. 

"Why is that?" Amélie had asked, trying to keep the surprise from her voice. 

"Waiting is worse than anything else," Lena had replied with a sigh. "If I am going to die, I'd rather it be sooner than later. Waiting just drags out the inevitable." 

Amélie couldn't help but agree with that. At least the waiting part. She knew they were waiting specifically to make sure that Lena wouldn't die and that it would help her, but a month of uncertainty was enough to weigh on anyone. Resigned to her fate, Lena didn't put up any more resistance, not even an argument. When Angela and Fareeha rolled the machine down the hall and to the door, Lena quietly stood in the back of the room. Without her accelerator, she was just a normal human. She couldn't hope to make it past the three women, nor past Winston who was waiting in the hall. When asked to lie down, she did so with the look of a woman going to her execution. 

"Hold still," Angela told her as she began sticking electrodes to Lena's head. "This should be safe but the placement of these is important." 

Lena said nothing but lay still. Angela attached the last of the electrodes and turned her attention to the machine they had wheeled into the room. It looked like it had been constructed from spare parts. That was entirely because it had been. Winston had assisted her in cobbling together what she needed to do her work. Amélie eyed it uncertainly. It looked like a dangerous contraption, a bit of experimental tech with no guarantee that it would work. 

"Now, this is probably going to hurt," Angela said as she placed a bite guard between Lena's teeth. "I'm sorry in advance for that, but I promise it's for the best." 

Not thinking and filled with worry, Amélie reached out to take Lena's hand only for the woman to snatch it back. Amélie winced at the reaction even though she should have expected it. She stepped away, moving to make room for Angela, and folded her arms across her chest. She chewed on her bottom lip as she watched the doctor work. Angela took a deep breath, looking at Amélie for a moment before she flipped the switch. 

Lena screamed immediately. It was a sound that made Amélie sick to her stomach. It was ragged and raw, a blood-curdling shriek that filled the room. Lena's back arched off the table she was laying on. Her hands turned to claws, scrabbling against the metal as she desperately tried to grab hold of anything. Amélie moved forward, desperate to help her lover, but Angela backed her off with a sharp look. Amélie stepped away again, her hand moving to her mouth. The sound seemed to go on and on, with no breaks for Lena to take a breath. It was continuous and horrible until, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Lena went silent and collapsed back on the table with a clatter. Angela quickly moved to turn the machine off. 

Angela placed her hand on Lena's shoulder and shook her gently. "Lena? Lena, say something.". 

Lena didn’t respond to the shaking, moving limply under Angela’s hand. The doctor frowned with concern and shook Lena more insistently. When she didn’t come to this time, Angela quickly bent over the unconscious woman. Angela pried Lena’s eyelid open to check her pupils, first one and then moving to the second. As Angela’s hand touched the woman’s face again, Lena suddenly inhaled. She seemed to freeze for a moment, body still as stone, before she began to scream again.. 

Lena’s hands went to her head, nearly hitting Angela in the face as they snapped upward. She clutched the sides of her skull, the tendons in her hands standing out as she pressed her fingers against herself. Like before, she seemed to scream continuously, an unending stream without pauses to breathe. She thrashed on the table before rolling onto her side and slipping over the edge. She hit the ground with a thud before anyone could move to help her.. 

“Lena! Lena, what is it?” Angela cried out as she ran around the table and knelt down next to the woman. “What’s the matter? You have to tell me!”. 

“My goddamned head!" Lena cried out. She got up on her elbows and knees, still clutching at her skull. “God, my head hurts! Make it stop!”. 

Angela looked around for a moment before she stood and sprinted from the room faster than Amélie thought was possible for the woman to move. Amélie moved around to Lena, crouching down next to her. She ran her hand soothingly across Lena’s back, not knowing what else to do. It was a relief when she felt Angela’s hand pushing her out of the way. The doctor held a hypodermic needle that she quickly stuck into Lena. The woman continued to scream for a few more long moments before they lessened into moans of pain and finally quiet whimpers. 

"How do you feel?" Angela asked, her voice tight with concern. "How bad is the pain?" 

"It's going away," Lena said tensely as she spat out the mouthguard. "Like my head got crushed under a rock, though.. 

“Good,” Angela said as she helped Lena back to her feet and onto the table. She leaned in to check Amélie's pupils and took her pulse. “The medicine should help keep you from hurting anymore.” 

"How do we tell if it worked? The procedure, I mean," Amélie asked, stepping forward. She laid a hand on Lena's arm and this time the other woman didn't pull away. 

"Well, that's the problem. We can't," Angela said with a sigh. "We just have to wait and see what she does." 

Amélie slid her hand down to take Lena's hand, a small bolt of relief firing through her chest when Lena's fingers entwined with hers. Amélie looked down and offered a smile, which Lena returned weakly. When Angela drew away again, Amélie reached her other hand up to lightly stroke Lena's cheek. 

"Leave us in here," Amélie said quietly. "For a few days. Until we are sure. I'll know if she does anything wrong." 

"Well, I had planned to leave her in here under observation, but if you're certain about it then I see no reason why you shouldn't," Angela said as she began removing the electrodes from Lena's head. "No, that's not true, I can think of reasons. She may still be dangerous. But I know you'll insist on it anyway. So, just promise me you'll be careful." 

"Of course. I promise." 

Angela wheeled the contraption out of the room, followed by Fareeha who had stayed to bodyguard her lover. Winston cast one more look inside before he closed the door and bolted it shut from the outside. Lena and Amélie were alone. Lena sat up and looked at Amélie with a nervous smile, one that Amélie couldn't help but return. She was pleased and hopeful that the procedure worked, but what if it didn't? She'd been attacked by Lena twice, stabbed rather brutally one of those times. She wasn't sure she could take Lena on in another fight if that's what it came down to. Her illness was getting worse while Lena was healthy and fit. Lena dropped her gaze down to look at their joined hands, her expression slipping from happy to sorrowful. Amélie's heart hurt to see her that way, trust issues aside. She leaned in and pressed her lips softly to Lena's. Lena's eyes closed and her free hand touched against Amélie's stomach. 

"I know you don't trust me," Lena said as the kiss broke. 

Amélie frowned and started to shake her head. "No, it is not--" 

"It is and it's okay. I wouldn't trust me either," Lena said with a sad smile. "I just have to prove it to you that I'm better now." 

"Okay," Amélie said with a nod. "Make me believe and we will get out of here." 

Lena placed a light kiss at the corner of Amélie's lips before she leaned back. She looked down at herself, at her dirty clothes, and frowned. She gave a small sniff before making a face. She looked at Amélie who could only look back and shrug. 

"I need a shower," Lena said, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. 

"I was not going to say anything," Amélie reassured. 

Lena hopped off the table and began to strip immediately, tossing her close to the side carelessly. Amélie watched with interest, unable to help herself from eyeing Lena's toned form as she stepped into the open stall of the shower. She began to scrub and Amélie sighed, moving to pick up all the discarded clothing and mess that Other Lena had left around the room. She stacked and piled everything by the door and returned to straighten up the bed. If she was going to sleep in here, she planned to be comfortable even if Lena did try to kill her. 

Finishing her shower, Lena toweled off quickly and dressed in fresh clothes. She came over to try and help tidy up, looking embarrassed again as she did. Amélie tried to reassure her with gentle touches, fingertips along her arm or a palm lightly on her shoulders. She paused in one passing, bent down to press her face into the crook of Lena's neck and inhaled deeply. 

"Yes, much better," she declared as she pulled away. 

Lena couldn't help but giggle softly at attention. "I'm glad you approve." 

"I was wondering how I was going to manage to sleep tonight with that interesting scent you had," Amélie said with a straight face, looking back at Lena. Her eyes shone playfully as she teased. "But now I may be able to rest peacefully." 

Dinner came shortly after the pair had finished cleaning up the mess that Other Lena had made. Truthfully, Amélie felt that being a disaster was something both versions of Lena shared. If Amélie hadn't been there to clean up, she doubted Lena would have at all. They ate quietly, Lena scarfing down the food like she'd not been eating lately. Amélie wondered how much she had eaten and how much had been tossed away. She also wondered if that was out spite or caution, fear of poisoning or medicating. Which would be odd considering how willingly she ended up being strapped into the machine. 

"I'm tired," Lena announced when she was finished. "That whole thing took a lot out of me." 

"I have not been sleeping much," Amélie lied. "We can call it early tonight." 

The pair undressed and crawled into bed together, turning the light out and plunging the room into an inky darkness. Amélie lay next to Lena, not quite touching her. In the dark, Amélie's nerves had suddenly flared to life. Unable to see Lena even so close, she began to think about the hallway. She began to think about Lena's hate-filled voice and the rage that fueled her attacks. The night passed slowly as she tried to tamp down those fears. Her eyes began to slip closed despite it all when she felt Lena move next to her. 

A dark shape moved across her body. A hand fumbled roughly at her shoulder. Adrenaline flooded Amélie's veins and woke her back up immediately. Her body tensed, ready to defend herself as she felt Lena's warm breath on her face. But nothing more happened. There was silence, the weight of Lena's body hovering over her. She could hear when Lena swallowed, hear the click of it in her throat. 

"Amélie," Lena said softly. 

"Lena?" Amélie asked uncertainly. 

"Amélie," Lena said again, hesitation in her voice. "I love you." 

Amélie relaxed immediately at those words. Her breath caught in her chest in surprise. Any fear or worry was pushed from her mind. She knew then that Lena was back to normal. The Other Lena could have never uttered those words with such earnestness. She reached up and slipped her arms around Lena's torso and pulled her down into an embrace. The words filled Amélie's head and flooded into her heart until she felt like she could burst. Her mouth couldn't say the words, her tongue refused to obey. Instead, she rolled Lena onto her back, her hands moving down her body. She couldn't say the words, but there was something she knew she could do. In the darkness of the chamber, shut away from the rest of the world, Amélie made love to Lena until she understood.

 

Angela studied Amélie's face for a moment. "Are you sure?" 

"I am sure," Amélie said with a nod. 

Angela looked into the room where Lena was sitting on an examination table. She frowned and folded her arms across her chest. It had been three days since the procedure and Amélie had seen nothing to show it hadn't worked. Angela was still hesitant to call it a success. There was no way to tell but for gut feelings and Angela didn't seem to trust those. 

"Are you sure you're not just saying this because you're afraid?" Angela asked. 

Amélie scowled at Angela. She was afraid, there was no denying that. She'd already progressed to a new symptom. Her fatigue had done nothing but increase and now she had spent the last two days with pounding headaches. Next was the tremors, the shaking of her delicate and precise fingers. After that, there was a coma to look forward to and death after that. They'd told her these things, again and again, warnings about why she should always go to her reconditioning. 

"Look, I am not stupid," Amélie said defensively. "I know the risk of finding out this didn't work. She is likely to try and kill me again. I am very aware of this. I spent the last three days waiting for her to try again. She has done things that only our Lena would do. I am sure of it." 

Angela sighed and rubbed her cheek with her hand. "Fine. Fine, Amélie. But if anything happens--" 

"It is my fault," Amélie finished. "You and Fareeha are leaving soon anyway, so it will not be your problem." 

Angela turned and walked into the room, Amélie following in her wake. Lena looked nervously between the two, her hands folded in her lap. Amélie walked around and put a hand on Lena's shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. Angela said nothing as she moved to start setting up the machine. 

"You can move off the table now, Lena," Angela finally said as she wheeled the machine over closer to the table. "I still want to keep an eye on you, but I'm trusting Amélie's opinion. I'll let Winston know." 

Lena let out a relieved sigh and hopped down. She moved over to the chair where her accelerator was sitting and began to strap it back on. Amélie moved to take Lena's place, pushing herself onto the table. Angela motioned for her to lay down and began attaching the electrodes when Amélie did. 

"It's going to hurt," Lena warned. 

"Better that than dying," Amélie said quietly. She closed her eyes and gripped the edges of the table in preparation regardless. 

"Alright," Angela said. "Here we go. One, two, three." 

Angela flipped the switch and Amélie braced herself for the sudden pain. But nothing happened. Amélie opened her eyes and looked up at the doctor who was frowning in confusion. Amélie opened her mouth to say something when a sudden jolt surged through her body. Her muscles all contracted, forcing her to arch off the table. A warmth followed it, spreading out in a wave from her head to her toes. It surged, again and again, each time followed by that strange warmth. None of it hurt, nothing made her cry out. The opposite was happening and her headache was receding from a sharp pain to a low throb. After a few minutes, Angela turned the machine off. 

"How do you feel?" she asked. 

Amélie looked at her, brow furrowed. "I feel fine. Better. It didn't hurt at all." 

"It may be because of the way you were conditioned," Angela said as she began removing the electrodes. "Or that you're already broken out of it. We'll keep an eye on you, just in case, but there's no reason it shouldn't have worked. I ran just as many tests against your data as Lena's." 

Amélie sat up when the last electrode was disconnected. "I think it's working. My head is already feeling better." 

"That could be unrelated, but I'll take it as a good sign," Angela said with a sigh. "This is all so new to me and without every bit of data that Talon has, it's a lot of guesswork. Educated guesswork, but still." 

"I'll let you know," Amélie said. 

"Good. Fareeha and I will probably be here another week, just to be sure. Now go on," Angela said. "I need to go talk to Winston." 

Before Amélie could say anything further, Lena was at her side. She took Amélie's hand and pulled the taller, blue-skinned woman out of the door. She led Amélie through the halls, without a word. Amélie didn't ask or question, she simply followed. Lena clearly had a mission. It became clear when they approached a door to the outside. Lena shoved the doors open and the pair stepped out into the cool, clear air of the evening. 

"I needed fresh air," Lena said before taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment. "It's been a long time." 

"I don't blame you," Amélie said as she began walking over toward the edge of the compound, pulling Lena along. 

"Thank you," Lena said as she trotted to keep up. "For believing me." 

"You proved it that first night," Amélie said with a smile. 

The sun was setting into the ocean, turning it a vibrant orange as the sky went pink. Amélie pulled Lena in closer and wrapped her arm around the shorter woman. Lena nestled in close and closed her eyes. Amélie just focused on the moment. It was a happy moment, perhaps the first one she'd had since the death of her husband. She never thought for once that she would ever escape the chains of Talon. But there she was, content and with a woman who loved her. Amélie took a deep breath and let it out as a sigh. 

"I love you, Lena."


	23. Epilogue

Amelie awoke with a groan. The room was still dark and the clock showed it was still early in the morning. What had woken her was immediately obvious by the blinding pain just behind her eyeballs. It felt like her skull had been filled with needles and then pressurized until it was ready to pop. She climbed out of bed, nearly collapsing immediately to the ground. She found her legs, if only barely, and stumbled into the bathroom. She flipped the light on and immediately regretted it. The agony only increased and her vision began to swim. Black spots flashed in front of her eyes and her stomach began roiling. She doubled over and vomited into the toilet.

She heaved until there was nothing left in her stomach and even for a few minutes after that. Her body shuddered, wracked with pain as her muscles protested the violence. She sat on the floor of the bathroom, trying to catch her breath. With a moment to think, fear began to creep into her pained mind. This should have been fixed. She shouldn't still be having these pains. Angela had cured her, hadn't she? The searing pain in her head answered that for her.

Clinging to the sink, she managed to pull herself up to her feet. She looked at herself in the mirror. She seemed paler, her skin almost faded and papery. Sweat stood out on her forehead. Her yellow eyes were glassy and she had trouble focusing on her own reflection. She turned on the water, letting it run into the sink as she tried to collect herself. Finally, sure she could stand on her own, she moved her hands to cup beneath the faucet.

Amelie watched, panic rising in her chest and squeezing around her heart, as the water spilled between her trembling, tremoring fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone who read this! Special thanks to everyone who commented! This took a long time so I'm glad so many of you stuck with it until the end. I hope you enjoyed it!

**Author's Note:**

> So begins the adventures of Tracer!
> 
> Be sure to check out my other stories if you like this one  
> [When We Start Over](http://archiveofourown.org/series/496594)  
> [The Angel and the Falcon](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7170656/chapters/16278233)


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